THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


THE    GREEN    TRAVELER, 


[.See  page  63.] 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1874,  by 

S.  C.  GRIGGS  &  CO., 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  oi  Congress  at  Washington. 


PRINTED   AT  THE   LAKESIDE    PRESS, 

CLARK  AND   ADAMS   STS. 
CHICAGO. 


ONLY    THIS: 

THE  Wheels  in  this  book  ran,  during  the  summer 
of  1873,  through  the  columns  of  THE  NEW  YORK 
EXAMINER  AND  CHRONICLE,  to  "the  head  and  front 
of  whose  offending,"  the 

REV.    EDWARD   BRIGHT,   D.D., 

who    gave    those    wheels    "  the    right  of  way/''   the  old 
rolling   stock    and    a    miscellaneous    cargo    is 

CORDIALLY   CONSIGNED. 


ROLLING   STOCK   AND    BILL 
OF    LADING. 


THE    WORLD   ON    WHEELS. 

CHAPTER.  PAGE- 

I.  THE  "WHEEL"  INSTINCT    -  13 

II.  THE  CONCORD  COACH     -  -     17 

III.  THE  RAGING  CANAL  -  23 

IV.  THE  IRON  AGE       -  -     3° 
V.  THE  IRON  HORSE  35 

VI.  PLUNGING  INTO  THE  WILDERNESS  -        -     45 

VII.  Vicious  ANIMALS  51 

VIII.  HABITS  OF  ENGINES  AND  TRAIN-MEN     -     60' 

IX.  IN  THE  SADDLE  -  68 

X.  RACING  AND  PLOWING    -  -     74 

XI.  SNOW  BOUND       -  82 

XII.  SCALDED  TO  DEATH  -     89 

XIII.  ALL  ABOARD  !      -  94 

XIV.  EARLY  AND  LATE  -  -  103 
XV.     DEAD  HEADS       -         -         -        -         -112 


10  ROLLING   STOCK  AND   BILL    OF  LADING. 

CHAPTER.  PAGE- 

XVI.  WORKING  "BY  THE  DAY"                       -  118 

XVII.  A  SLANDERER  AND  A  WEATHER  MAKER    123 

XVIII.  DREAMING  ON  THE  CARS                            -  128 

XIX.  "MEET  ME  BY  MOONLIGHT"                 -       136 

XX.  THE  MAKER  OF  CITIES  -                           -  144 

XXI.  A  CABOOSE  RIDE                                     -       150 

XXII.  HATCHING  OUT  A  WOMAN      -                  -  154 

XXIII.  A  FLANK  MOVEMENT  -  -                159 

XXIV.  LIGHT  AND  SHADE  -  -         -   162 
XXV.  PRECIOUS  CARGOES      -        -        -        -       168 


BAGGAGE. 

I.     MY  STARRY  DAYS  -  -  175 

II.     "No.   104,163"     -  -       193 

III.  OUR  OLD  GRANDMOTHER  -  206 

IV.  OUT- DOOR  PREACHING  -       216 
V.     THE  STORY  OF  THE  BELL       -  -  223 

VI.     "MY  EYE!"  -       226 

VII.     THE  OLD  ROAD      -  -  241 

A  BIRD  HEAVEN          -         -         -  251 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


THE  GREEN  TRAVELER  -                  -       Frontispiece. 

THE  CONCORD  COACH  -         -         -         -         -         19-, 

THE  BAGGAGE  SMASHER  -                           -              63- 

A  LITTLE  LATE  -       no  — 

BAGGAGE       -  -  173 

SWITCH  OFF      -  -                                   258  - 


THE  WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 


CHAPTER  I. 


THE 


THE  perpetual  lever  called  a  wheel  is  the 
masterpiece  of  mechanical  skill.  At  home  on  sea 
and  land,  like  the  feet  of  the  Proclaiming  Angel, 
it  finds  a  fulcrum  wherever  it  happens  to  be. 
It  is  the  alphabet  of  human  ingenuity.  You 
can  spell  out  with  the  wheel  and  the  lever  — 
and  the  latter  is  only  a  loose  spoke  of  that 
same  wheel — pretty  much  everything  in  the  Nine 
teenth  Century  but  the  Christian  Religion  and 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Having  thought 
about  it  a  minute  more,  I  am  inclined  to  ex 
cept  the  exceptions,  and  say  they  translate  the 
one  and  transport  the  other. 

Were  you  ever  a  boy?  Never?  Well,  then, 
my  girl,  was  n't  one  of  your  first  ambitions  a 
finger-ring?  And  there  is  your  wheel,  with  a 
small  live  axle  in  it !  But  whatever  you  are, 

(13) 


14  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

did  you  ever  know  a  boy  worth  naming  and 
owning  who  did  not  try  to  make  a  wheel  out 
of  a  shingle,  or  a  board,  or  a  scrap  of  tin  ? 
Maybe  it  was  as  eccentric  as  a  comet's  orbit, 
and  only  tvabbled  when  it  was  meant  to  whirl, 
but  it  was  the  genuine  curvilinear  aspiration  for 
all  that.  Boys,  young  and  old,  "take  to"  wheels 
as  naturally  as  they  take  to  sin.  I  am  sorry  for 
the  fellow  that  never  rigged  a  water-wheel  in  the 
spring  swell  of  the  meadow  brook,  or  mounted  a 
wind-mill  on  the  barn  gable,  or  drew  a  wagon 
of  his  own  make.  My  sympathies  do  not  extend 
to  his  lack  of  a  velocipede,  which  is  nothing  if 
not  a  bewitched  and  besaddled  wheelbarrow. 

In  fact,  it  seems  to  be  the  tendency  of  every 
thing  to  be  a  wheel.  There 's  your  tumbling 
dolphin,  and  there  's  your  whirling  world.  The 
conqueror  whose  hurry  set  on  fire  the  axles  of 
his  chariot  was  no  novelty.  Who  knows  that 
the  Aurora  Borealis  and  the  Aurora  Australis, 
lighting  up  the  sky  about  the  polar  circles  in 
the  night-time,  may  not  be  the  flashes  from  the 
glowing  axles  of  the  planet  ?  Who  knows  that 
the  ice  and  snow  may  not  be  piled  up  about  the 
Arctic  and  Antarctic  just  to  keep  the  flaming 
gudgeons  as  cool  as  possible  ?  Does  Sir  John 
Franklin  ?  Does  anybody  ? 

Take  an  old  man's  memory.  Only  give  it  a 
touch,  and  it  turns  like  a  wheel  between  his  two 


THE   "WHEEL"   INSTINCT.  15 

childhoods,  and  1810  comes  round  before  you  can 
count  the  spokes,  and  1874  hardly  out  of  sight. 

When  they  made  narrow  wooden  hands  with 
slender  wrists,  and  called  them  oars,  and  galleys 
swept  the  Eastern  seas  in  a  grave  and  stately 
way,  they  did  well.  When  they  fashioned  broad 
and  ghastly  palms  of  canvas  that  laid  hold  upon 
the  empty  air,  and  named  them  sails,  they  did 
better.  When  they  grouped  around  an  axle  the 
iron  hands  that  buffeted  the  waves  and  put  the 
sea,  discomfited,  rebuked,  behind  the  flying  ship, 
they  had  their  wheel,  and  they  did  best! 

A  one-horse  wagon — for  nothing  was  buggy 
then,  but  neglected  bedsteads  —  artistically  bilious, 
and  striped  like  a  beetle,  with  a  paneled  box 
high  before  and  behind,  like  an  inverted  chapeau, 
and  a  seat  with  a  baluster  back,  softened  and 
graced  with  a  buffalo  robe,  warm  in  winter — and 
in  summer  also  —  was  one  of  the  wheeled  won 
ders  of  my  boyhood.  No  sitting  in  that  wagon 
like  a  right-angled  triangle  —  room  in  front  for 
any  possible  length  of  leg,  and  a  foot -stove 
withal  —  room  behind  for  two  or  three  handfuls 
of  children,  and  a  little  hair-trunk  with  a  bit 
of  brass-nail  alphabet  on  the  cover.  Curiously 
enough,  the  wagon  was  owned  by  that  noble 
Baptist  pioneer  of  the  New  York  North  Woods, 
Elder  —  not  Reverend  but  revered  —  JOHN  BLOD- 
GETT,  and  in  it  he  used  to  traverse  "  East  road," 


16  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

and  "West  road,"  and  "Number  Three  road," 
and  go  to  Denmark  and  Copenhagen  and  Leyden 
and  Turin,  and  other  places  in  foreign  parts, 
without  shipping  a  sea,  or,  to  borrow  a  morsel 
of  thunder,  without  "  seeing  a  ship."  His  was 
the  voice  of  "  John  crying  in  the  wilderness" — 
John,  the  Beloved  disciple,  he  surely  was. 

Before  he  went  to  "  the  Ohio,"  for  that  is 
what  they  called  it  in  the  years  ago,  he  preached 
a  farewell  to  the  saddened  friends,  "  Sorrowing 
most  of  all  that  they  should  see  his  face  no 
more,"  and  then  some  Christians,  some  children 
and  some  sinners  accompanied  him  ten  miles  on 
his  way,  and,  after  that,  the  paneled  wagon  was 
lost  in  the  wilderness  and  the  West,  and  we  all 
turned  sorrowing  home,  and  his  words  uno  more" 
proved  true. 

And  the  next  wheeled  wonder  was  a  calash- 
topped  chaise,  heavy,  squeaky  on  its  two  great 
loops  of  leather  springs,  and  a  swaying,  sleepy 
way  with  it,  that,  for  the  occupants  was  as  easy 
as  lying,  but  for  the  horse  as  wearisome  as  Pil 
grim  Christian's  knapsack  of  iniquity. 


THE  CONCORD  COACH.  17 


CHAPTER  II. 


THE    CONCORD    COACH. 

FIFTY  miles  north  of  Utica,  New  York,  as  the 
crow  flies,  there  is  a  village.  What  there  was 
of  it  in  the  old  days  lay  in  the  bottom  of  a 
bay  of  land  bounded  on  the  north,  south,  and 
west  by  wooded  hills,  with  some  stone-mason 
work  in  them  older  than  the  Vatican.  But  now 
the  beautiful  town  rises  like  a  spring-tide  high 
up  the  green  sides  of  the  bay.  Once  in  twenty- 
four  hours  over  the  south  hill  lurched  a  stage 
coach.  The  tin  horn  was  whipped  out  of  its 
sheath  by  the  driver,  and  a  short,  sharp,  nasal 
twang  rang  out,  rising  sometimes  in  one  long 
clear  note,  that  warbled  away  in  an  acoustic 
ringlet,  like  its  aristocratic  cousin  with  a  mouth 
like  a  brazen  morning-glory  —  the  bugle. 

Every  thing  in  the  little  village  was  broad 
awake.  Doors  flew  open,  faces  were  framed  in 
at  the  windows,  children  hung  on  the  gates. 
Then  the  driver  gathered  up  the  ribbons  of  his 
four-in-hand,  swung  off  from  the  coach-top  his 


18  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

long-lashed  whip  with  its  silken  cracker,  flicked 
artistically  the  off  leader's  "nigh"  ear,  gave  the 
wheelers  a  neighborly  slap,  and  with  jingle  of 
chains  and  rattle  of  bolt,  and  a  sea-going  rock 
and  swing,  down  the  hill  he  thundered  and 
through  the  main  street,  the  horses'  ears  laid 
close  to  their  heads  like  a  running  rabbit's,  a 
great  cloud  of  dust  rolling  up  behind  the  leather 
"  boot "  the  color  of  an  elephant,  the  passengers 
looking  out  at  the  stage  windows,  until,  with  a 
jolt  and  one  sharp  summons  of  the  horn,  like  the 
note  of  a  vexed  and  exasperated  bee,  the  craft 
brings-to  at  the  Post-office,  and  the  driver  whirls 
the  padlocked  pouch  out  from  under  his  mighty 
boots  to  the  ground,  and  then  exploding  the  tip- 
end  of  his  twelve-foot  lash  like  a  pistol-shot,  he 
makes  a  sweep  and  comes  about  with  a  rattling 
halt  in  front  of  the  stage-house.  The  fat  old 
landlord  —  fat  and  old  when  you  were  a  boy,  and 
alive  yet  —  shuffles  out  in  slippers,  opens  the 
coach-door,  swings  down  the  little  iron  ladder 
with  two  rounds,  and  the  passengers  make  a 
landing.  One  of  them  may  have  been  General 
Brady,  the  man  who  said,  or  so  they  say,  when 
told  he  could  not  survive  the  illness  that  pros 
trated  him,  "  Beat  the  drum,  the  knapsack 's 
slung,  and  Hugh  Brady  is  ready  to  march!"  Or 
it  may  have  been  Joseph  Bonaparte,  ex-king, 
and  yet  with  his  head  on,  which  is  not  after 


THE  CONCORD  COACH.  19 

the  historic  manner  of  monarchs  out  of  business, 
^oing  to  his  wilderness  possessions  in  the  North 
Woods.  Or  it  may  have  been  Frederick  Hass- 
ler,  the  Swiss,  Chief  of  the  United  States  Survey 
in  the  long  ago,  en  route  for  Cape  Vincent  —  the 
man  who  knew  more  and  tougher  mathematics 


THE    CONCORD    COACH 

than  all  of  his  successors  together,  and  who 
could  say  more  while  the  hostlers  were  changing 
horses  than  anybody  else  could  say  in  sixty 
minutes.  Meanwhile  the  spanking  team,  loosed 
from  the  coach,  file  off  in  a  knowing  way  and 
a  cloud  of  steam,  meeting  with  a  snort  of  recog 
nition  the  relay  that  is  filing  out  to  take  their 
places. 

That   yellow,  mud-bespattered   stage,  with  "  E. 


20  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

MERKIAM,  No.  something"  blazoned  on  the  doors, 
was  the  one  thing  that  linked  the  small  village 
with  the  great  world,  brought  tidings  of  wars, 
accidents  and  incidents,  that  had  grown  gray  on 
the  journey,  and  word  from  far-away  friends 
whose  graves  might  have  waxed  green  while  the 
letters  they  had  written,  and  secured  with  a 
round  red  moon  of  a  wafer,  and  sealed  with  a 
thumb  or  a  thimble,  were  yet  trampled  beneath 
the  driver's  feet  like  grain  on  the  threshing-floor. 
Think  of  that  coach  creeping  like  an  insect,  for 
sixpence  a  mile,  and  five  miles  to  the  hour,  to 
and  fro  between  East  and  West,  the  only  estab 
lished  means  of  communication !  Think  of  its 
nine  passengers  inside,  knocked  about  like  the 
unlucky  ivories  in  a  dice-box,  between  New  York 
and  Detroit,  between  Boston  and  Washington. 
They  get  in,  all  strangers ;  the  ladies  on  the  back 
seat,  the  man  who  is  sea-sick,  by  one  coach- 
window,  the  man  that  chews  "the  weed,  it  was 
the  devil  sowed  the  seed,"  at  the  other;  some 
body  going  to  Congress,  somebody  going  for 
goods,  somebody  going  to  be  married.  They  are 
all  packed  in  at  last  like  sardines,  with  perhaps 
an  urchin  chucked  into  some  crevice,  to  make 
all  snug.  There  are  ten  sorts  of  feet,  and  two 
of  a  sort,  dovetailed  in  a  queer  mosaic  upon  the 
coach-floor.  The  door  closes  with  a  bang,  the 
driver  fires  a  ringing  shot  or  two  from  his  whip- 


THE  CONCORD  COACH.  21 

lash,  and  away  they  pitch  and  lurch.  Think  of 
them  riding  all  day,  all  night,  all  day  again, 
crushed  hats  and  elbowed  ribs,  jumping  up  and 
bouncing  down  into  each  other's  laps  every  little 
while  with  some  plunge  of  the  coach ;  butting 
at  each  other  in  a  belligerent  way,  now  and 
then,  as  if  "Aries  the  ram"  were  the  ruling 
sign  for  human  kind;  begging  each  other's  par 
don,  laughing  at  each  other's  mishaps,  strangers 
three  hours  ago,  getting  to  know  each  other  well 
and  like  each  other  heartily,  and  parting  at  last 
with  a  clasp  of  the  hand  and  a  sigh  of  regret. 
I  think  a  fifty-mile  battering  in  a  stage-coach 
used  to  shake  people  out  of  the  shell  of  their 
crustaceous  proprieties,  and  make  more  lifelong 
friends  than  a  voyage  of  five  thousand  miles  by 
rail.  The  contemplation  for  a  day  or  two  of  a 
woman's  back-hair  or  a  man's  bumps  of  com- 
bativeness,  is  about  as  merry  as  a  catacomb  tea- 
party,  and  about  as  conducive  to  lively  friend 
ships. 

All  of  us  who  have  arrived  at  years  of  dis 
cretion  —  had  Methuselah  ?  —  have  had  a  suspicion 
for  some  time  that  this  is  not  the  same  world 
we  were  born  into.  Such  a  looking-over-the- 
shoulder  as  the  writer  has  just  indulged  in 
brightens  the  dim  suspicion  into  certainty,  It  is 
a  grander  world,  with  grander  needs  and*  agencies 
to  match.  The  little  iron  wheels  have  trundled 


22  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

the  big  wooden  wheels  out  of  the  way.  The 
dear  old  Concord  coaches  of  the  past  are  driven 
to  the  confines  of  civilization.  Jehu  has  swung 
himself  down  from  his  box,  thrust  the  butt  end 
of  his  whip-stock  into  the  tin  horn's  mouth,  hung 
them  up  on  a  nail  behind  the  door,  and  died. 
The  swallows  flash  in  and  out  at  the  diamond 
lights  in  the  old  stage  barn,  its  only  occupants. 
I  visited  Fort  Scott  a  while  ago  —  Fort  Scott, 
Kansas,  that  wonderful  bit  of  metropolitan  vigor 
in  the  wilderness.  The  Missouri,  Kansas  and 
Texas  Railroad  had  reached  it,  and  gone  on  to 
the  Indian  country.  It  had  been  a  grand  center 
for  radiating  stage  lines,  and  the  day  the  stages 
were  to  break  up  camp  at  Fort  Scott  and  go 
deeper  into  Kansas,  farther  into  Missouri,  some 
body,  who  had  caught  the  sentiment  of  the 
thing,  proposed  that  all  the  coaches  should  be 
grouped  in  one  place,  and  a  photographer  should 
train  his  piece  of  small  artillery  upon  them,  and 
so  they  should  be  "  taken."  The  picture  is 
before  me.  The  four-in-hands,  the  great  coaches, 
the  snug  covered  hacks  for  the  cross  cuts,  the 
drivers  in  position,  drivers  and  stages  alike  "all 
full  inside,"  and  a  sprinkling  of  deck  passengers. 
It  was  the  work  of  an  instant ;  the  coaches  were 
emptied  and  wheeled  away,  to  be  seen  and  heard 
and  welcomed  and  looked  after  in  Fort  Scott 
no  more. 


THE  RAGING  CANAL.  23 


CHAPTER  III. 


THE    KAGING    CANAL. 

THE  world  has  certainly  grown.  Putting  the 
period  just  in  time,  the  statement  is  a  safe  one 
— "  has  certainly  grown."  When  De  Witt  Clin 
ton  developed  the  Dutch  idea  in  America,  and 
made  a  line  of  poetry  from  tide-water  to  Lake 
Erie,  which  people  vilified  and  christened  "  Clin 
ton's  Ditch,"  the  world  was  not  quite  ready  for 
it,  and  the  Governor  went  ahead  in  a  canal-boat ! 
Fancy  that  world  distanced  by  a  three-horse 
power  tandem  team  at  six  miles  an  hour  to-day. 

But  it  was  a  stately  affair  then.  There  was 
a  barrel  of  salt  water  standing  at  the  bow  of 
the  packet-boat.  There  was  the  proud  and  portly 
Governor  erect  behind  the  barrel  like  Virgil's 
ears  of  attention  —  arrectis  auribus.  There  were 
the  horses  resetted  and  bespangled.  There  were 
the  high  and  mighty  dignitaries  on  deck,  clus 
tered  like  young  bees  on  a  hive's  front  door-step 
at  swarming  time.  There  were  the  enthusiastic 
crowds  along  the  way.  Arrived  at  Buffalo,  amid 


24  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

surges  of  music  and  rattle  of  cannon,  the  Chief 
Executive  poured  that  brackish  Atlantic  water 
into  the  fine  indigo  blue  of  Lake  Erie.  It  was 
was  not  quite  so  grand  as  the  old  ceremonial 
when  the  Doge  of  Venice  wedded  the  Adriatic, 
but  it  meant  a  great  deal  more.  It  meant  Bishop 
Berkely,  who  said  something  about  a  Westward- 
going  star,  of  which  some  mention  has  been  made 
once  or  twice.  It  meant  Ohio,  Michigan,  Illi 
nois,  in  that  far  future  which  is  our  instant 
present.  It  meant  EMPIRE  !  You  can  count  the 
acts  that  have  meant  more,  within  a  hundred 
years,  upon  four  fingers  and  a  thumb  —  more  than 
ladling  out  that  barrel  of  sea-water  in  a  strange 
place.  Well,  the  boats  began  to  slide  along  the 
thoroughfare  of  water,  and  go  up  stairs  and  down 
stairs  in  a  strange  way;  and  they  multiplied  like 
the  sluggard's  schoolma'am, —  who  was  his  ant, 
also, — till  there  are  boats  in  sight  in  summer 
days  everywhere  between  Buffalo  and  tide-water; 
and  they  grow  larger,  till  there  are  a  thousand 
craft  on  the  Erie  Canal  of  greater  tonnage  than 
the  vessel  from  whose  deck  Lawrence  sent  up  the 
dying  charge  that  made  him  as  deathless  as  the 
Pleiades. 

The   cargoes   of  those   boats,   when   they  began 
to  creep,  was  something  wonderful :    men,  women    * 
and   children ;    plows,   axes  and   Bibles ;   teachers, 
preachers   and   Ramage   presses,   along    with    bed- 


THE  RAGING  CANAL.  26 

steads  that  corded  up  and  creaked  like  gates  in 
high  winds ;  big  wheels,  little  wheels  and  reels, 
looms  with  timber  enough  in  them  for  saw-mills 
and  a  log  or  two  left  to  begin  upon.  So  you 
see,  when  they  went  West  in  those  days  they 
packed  up  their  homes  and  took  them  along. 
You  were  sure  of  their  finding  anchor-ground 
somewhere,  for  how  could  a  man  go  adrift  with 
a  wife,  five  children,  a  brass  kettle  and  a  feather 
bed  tied  to  him  ?  You  were  sure,  too,  that  the 
world  would  not  be  wronged  out  of  a  home  — 
perhaps  a  better  and  a  happier  one  than  the 
man  set  afloat  on  Clinton's  Ditch  for  a  place 
nearer  sundown. 

Thus  it  was  that  the  grand  westward  drift  of 
things  received  its  first  impulse.  Churches  with 
steeples  to  them,  school-houses  full  of  children, 
newspapers,  farms,  Christian  homes,  not  one  of 
which  appeared  on  the  bills  of  lading,  were  all 
tumbled  aboard  the  canal-boat  amidships  or  some 
where,  though  nobody  seemed  to  know  it.  The 
mighty  fleet  of  white-decked  "  liners,"  looking 
like  Brobdignagian  —  that  word  won't  hurt  you  if 
you  don't  go  near  it! — ants'  eggs  with  windows 
in  them,  has  had  more  to  do  with  the  march  of 
civilization  than  all  the  aquatic  armaments  that 
ever  thundered.  Sometimes,  scurrying  along  in  the 
cars  at  thirty  miles  an  hour,  you  catch  glimpses 
of  nests  of  these  eggs  adrift  in  the  green  fields, 

4 


26  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

floating  by  the  white  villages,  and  advancing,  by 
contrast,  so  wonderfully  slow  that  they  go  back 
ward.  Now  and  then  a  chit  of  a  girl,  with  a 
little  market-basket  of  garden  vegetables  upside 
down  on  the  top  of  her  head,  or  a  young  fellow 
who  parts  his  hair  in  the  middle,  and  has  nothing 
else  to  part  with  worth  mentioning,  catches  a 
glimpse  of  the  eggs,  too,,  and  tosses  a  sniff  of 
contempt  at  them  out  of  the  window,  never 
dreaming  that  he  looks  upon  a  letter  or  two  of 
the  alphabet  of  progress. 

I  never  see  one  of  those  boats  without  a  sigh 
of  regret,  not-  because  I  want  to  be  captain  or 
cook  or  anything,  but  because  I  took  my  first 
foreign  voyage  on  one  of  them,  and  the  boat  was 
a  "liner"  at  that!  We  "took  ship"  at  Oneida, 
took  water  along  the  way,  took  soundings  when 
we  ran  aground,  took  steamer  at  Buffalo.  It  was 
a  taking  trip.  Of  the  passengers,  one  turned  into 
Doctor  of  Divinity,  another  into  Professor  of  Latin 
in  the  University  of  Michigan,  a  third  into  Pres 
ident  of  a  Southern  College,  a  fourth  into  the 
pastor  of  a  Michigan  church,  two  bright  and 
pleasant  young  ladies  into  dust  long  ago,  and  the 
seventh  and  youngest  into  the  writer  of  this 
sketch. 

It  was  a  merry,  care -free  party.  Not  one  of 
the  survivors  can  say  that  for  himself  to  -  day. 
We  were  clustered  in  the  little  forward  cabin. 


THE  RAGING  CANAL.  27 

We  ran  over  the  deck  to  the  after -cabin  for 
meals.  We  sat  upon  our  baggage,  and  took  some 
thing  more  than  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  country. 
We  told  stories  and  sang  songs  and  dreamed 
dreams.  We  went  into  cool  locks  where  the 
water  splashed  and  tumbled  about  the  bows,  and 
Were  glad.  We  suffocated  ourselves  with  blan 
kets  when  we  crossed  the  Montezuma  mosquitoes. 
Why  not?  Verily,  there  is  but  one  Marsh  there, 
but  of  mosquitoes  there  are  several.  I  have  heard 
of  Montezuma's  death,  It  was  some  time  ago,  but 
it  would  have  been  no  wonder  had  he  died  young, 
not  because  of  the  love  of  the  Gods,  but  of  the 
mosquitoes.  We  sat  on  the  deck  and  watched  the 
steersman's  intonations.  When  he  cried,  "Low 
bridge  ! "  we  merely  ducked  our  heads  ;  but  when 
he  said,  "Low  bridge!"  down  we  went  flat  upon 
the  floor  like  a  parcel  of  undiscovered  idolaters. 
The  Palinurus  slued  the  stern  of  the  boat 
around,  and  we  leaped  off  upon  the  "heel-path" 
and  took  a  stroll.  He  drove  bows  on  upon  the 
opposite  shore,  arid  we  took  a  walk  on  the  "tow- 
path"  with  the  "drive,"  who  looked  like  a  bun 
dle  of  old  clothes,  was  as  smart  as  a  whip,  and 
profane  as  "our  army  in  Flanders."  He  sang 
songs  through  the  night  and  the  rain  as  happy 
as  a  frog,  and  when,  covered  with  mud  and  water, 
he  came  aboard  to  eat,  he  looked  like  a  bewil 
dered  muskrat,  and  his  tracks  like  a  muskrat's  also. 


28  THE  WORLD  ON  WHEELS. 

We  used  to  hear  one  genuine  word  of  old  Eng 
lish  in  those  seafaring  days.  Perhaps  some  other 
ambitious  "liner"  was  pulling  out  ahead  of  us. 
You  confer  with  the  "drive"  as  to  the  chance 
of  passing  it.  You  offer  him  a  shilling  to  try. 
and  his  under  jaw  drops  like  the  lower  half  of 
a  bellows.  But  promise  him  a  "scale" — scale, 
skilling,  shilling — and  he  gets  all  the  tough  pull 
out  of  his  tandem  that  there  is  in  it,  and  goes 
by  if  he  can.  Websterian  "probabilities"  says 
that  is  not  the  derivation  of  "  scale "  at  all,  but 
no  matter.  So  you  see,  we  went  to  sea  without 
leaving  shore.  Now  and  then  a  cigar-shaped 
packet,  fuller  of  windows  on  the  sides  than  ever 
a  German  flute  was  of  finger-holes,  would  pass 
us  with  a  swash  and  the  blast  of  a  bugle  to 
"  open  lock,"  and  the  three  horses  at  a  swinging 
trot,  the  deck  crowded  with  passengers,  and  the 
cook  in  the  kitchen  stewing  and  frying  and 
roasting  himself  and  the  dinner  in  the  same 
kettles. 

It  was  the  aristocrat  of  canal  craft,  the  packet 
was,  the  captain  was  somebody,  and  wore  gloves, 
and  when  on  my  voyage  I  saw  one  coming,  I 
went  down  into  the  cabin,  red  as  to  my  ears, 
for  something  I  had  forgotten,  and  that  I  never 
found  in  time  to  come  out  of  the  egg  till  the 
packet  had  gone  by.  It  has  since  occurred  to 
me  that  possibly  the  redness  of  ears  at  that 


THE  RAGING  CANAL.  29 

time  might  not  have  been  a  quality  so  remark 
able  as  their  length.  How  you  would  like  the 
snuggery  of  the  cabin  now,  and  the  shelf  of  a 
berth  that  you  couldn't  turn  over  in  if  a  heavy 
fellow  happened  to  be  sagging  on  the  shelf  above 
you,  and  the  canal-banks  even  with  the  top  of 
your  head  when  you  sit  down,  and  the  sun  about 
as  hot  upon  the  roof  as  if  he  had  actually  taken 
a  deck  passage  and  come  bodily  aboard,  is  not 
a  matter  of  doubt.  But  the  memory  of  that 
voyage  is  pleasant,  after  all  —  after  all  what?  all 
these  years ;  like  the  music  of  Caryl,  "  pleasant 
but  mournful  to  the  soul."  And  should  this  short 
story  of  a  long  voyage  bring  back  to  any  reader 
some  such  journey  that  he  took  in  the  years  that 
are  gone,  some  cheerful  hours  he  spent,  some 
cherished  friends  he  made,  some  faces  he  learned 
to  love,  that  for  him  shall  never  be  changed  nor 
sent  away,  then  these  paragraphs  are  not  vain. 


80  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS, 


CHAPTER  IT. 


THE    IRON    AGE. 

THEY  tarried  longer  by  the  way  in  those  days, 
and  they  lived  longer,  most  of  them.  I  think, 
too,  they  knew  each  other  better,  possibly  loved 
each  other  more,  when  they  went  six  miles  an 
hour,  than  we  know  each  other  now  that  we  go 
sixty.  Mind,  I  would  have  nobody  turn  into 
muriate  of  soda  and  make  a  Lot's  wife  of  him 
self  on  my  account,  but  then  a  harness  with 
neither  hold-back  nor  breeching  is  a  dangerous 
thing  unless  the  world  is  a  dead  level,  than 
which  nothing  is  so  very  dead,  not  even  a  grave 
yard.  The  world  has  certainly  grown.  These 
sketches  are  written  at  a  place  in  the  State  of 
New  York  known  on  the  old  maps  as  Chadwick's 
Bay.  It  is  flanked  by  one  of  the  loveliest  vil 
lages  in  all  the  empire.  To  that  village  came 
the  late  Rev.  Dr.  ELISHA  TUCKER,  whose  mem 
ory  is  yet  fragrant  in  the  churches  —  then  neither 
Reverend  nor  Doctor,  but  the  plain  and  primi 
tive  Elder  Tucker — came  with  his  young  wife, 


THE  IRON  AGE.  31 

who  went  a  thousand  miles  alone,  a  while  ago, 
to  visit  friends!  —  came  from  Buffalo  forty  miles 
along  the  Lake  shore  to  that  lovely  village  in 
a  one-horse  wagon,  and  took  up  his  life  work. 
There  was  not  a  Baptist  church  west  of  him. 
He  preached  the  first  sermon  anybody  ever  heard 
in  Cleveland.  A  schooner  with  rusty  sails  came 
sliding  into  Chadwick's  Bay  with  his  small  store 
of  household  wealth.  The  painted  Senecas  and 
the  smoky  Onondagas  went  gliding  about  like 
vanishing  shadows.  Deer  trooped  across  the  land 
scapes  like  flocks  of  sheep.  Speckled  trout  — 
nature's  great  piscatorial  triumph,  if  they  did  n't 
weigh  but  a  pound  apiece  —  spotted  with  carmine 
and  gold,  leaped  out  of  the  cold  brooks  into  the 
sunshine.  There  is  a  roll  of  dull  thunder  day 
and  night  within  ear-shot  of  where  I  write  these 
lines  at  Chadwick's  Bay.  Twenty-five  hundred 
cars  rumble  by  every  twenty-four  hours.  Flocks 
and  herds  from  a  thousand  hills  and  plains  roll 
along  on  iron  casters  like  pieces  ot  heavy  cabinet 
work.  Broad  harvests  trundle  Eastward  to  tide 
water.  They  rattle  over  the  lines  of  longitude, 
and  set  them  together  in  their  flight  like  the 
stripes  on  the  American  flag. 

It   is   the   World    on   Wheels. 

The  story  of  the  Locomotive  is  the  history  of 
mechanical  invention.  It  is,  if  you  please,  the 
monogram  of  the  right-hand  cunning  of  mankind. 


32  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

In  its  finished  state,  standing  upon  the  track  as 
it  does  to-day,  in  its  burnished  bravery  of  steel 
and  brass,  its  shining  arms  thrust  into  the  cas 
kets  slung  lightly  at  its  sides,  ready  at  an  in 
stant's  notice  to  pluck  out  great  handfuls  of 
power  and  toss  them  in  fleecy  volumes  along  the 
way  —  I  want  Job  to  take  a  look  and  tell  us  all 
about  it.  He  that  so  described  a  horse  of  flesh 
and  blood  that  Landseer  could  have  painted  the 
creature  if  he  had  never  seen  one,  must  be  able 
to  handle  the  Locomotive  without  gloves.  Job 
would  have  been  the  man  for  the  job. 

Did  you  ever  tell  anybody  that  the  Locomo 
tive  is  a  familiar  acquaintance  of  yours  —  that 
you  are  on  speaking  terms  with  it?  If  you  never 
did,  then  never  do,  for  it  will  strain  your  list 
ener's  credulity  and  your  credibility  fearfully. 
I  have  a  sort  of  touch-the-brim-of-the-hat  respect 
for  the  thing,  and  am  never  so  busy  that  I  can 
not  give  it  a  civil  look  as  it  goes  by.  The  dull 
prose  strikes  into  a  quickstep  as  I  think  about  it: 

Would  ye  know  the  grand  Song  that  shall  sing  out  the  age  — 

That  shall  flow  down  the  world  as  the  lines  down  the  page  — 

That  shall  break  through  the  zones  like  a  North  and  South  river 

From  winter  to  spring  making  music  forever  ? 

I  heard  its  first  tones  by  an  old-fashioned  hearth, 

'T  was  an  anthem's  faint  cry  on  the  brink  of  its  birth  ! 

'Twas  the  tea-kettle's  drowsy  and  droning  refrain, 

As  it  sang  through  its  nose  as  it  swung  from  the  crane.     . 


THE  IRON  AGE.  33 

T  was  a  being  begun  and  awaiting  its  brains  — 
To  be  saddled  and  bridled  and  given  the  reins. 
Now  its  lungs  are  of  steel  and  its  breathings  of  fire, 
And  it  craunches  the  miles  with  an  iron  desire, 
Its  white  cloud  of  a  mane  like  a  banner  unfurled, 
It  howls  through  the  hills  and  it  pants  round  the  world  ! 
It  furrows  the  forest  and  lashes  the  flood, 
And  hovers  the  miles  like  a  partridge's  brood. 

Oh  !   stand  ye  to-day  in  the  door  of  the  heart. 

With  its  nerve  raveled  out  floating  free  on  the  air, 

And  feeling  its  way  with  ethereal  art 

By  the  flash  of  the  Telegraph  everywhere, 

And  then  think,  if  you  can,  of  a  mission  more  grand 

Than  a  mission  to  LIVE  in  this  time  and  this  land  ; 

Round  the  World  for  a  sweetheart  an  arm  you  can  wind, 

And  your  lips  to  the  ear  of  listening  Mankind  ! 


There  used  to  be  a  question  and  answer  in  the 
old  manuals  of  Chemistry  that  shut  together  like  a 
pair  of  scissors  :  "  What  are  the  precious  metals  ? 
Gold  and  silver."  How  will  it  do  to  amend  and 
let  the  mouthful  of  catechism  run  thus :  "  What 
are  the  precious  metals  ?  Iron  and  brass."  Iron 
for  wheels,  and  brass  for  people  !  That  is  better 
because  it  is  truer.  Whoever  is  curious  to  know 
how  the  name  of  a  certain  alloy  of  copper  and 
zinc  came  to  take  in  a  mental  and  moral  quality 
as  a  third  ingredient,  need  only  post  himself  a 
little  in  insular  literature.  The  rich  ore  of  the 
copper  mines  of  Cyprus  was  called  Cyprian  brass. 
Venus  was  the  chief  divinity  of  the  Cyprian  peo 
ple's  adoration.  Queerly  enough,  their  quality 


34  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

struck  into  their  mines  like  a  thunderbolt,  and  the 
name  of  the  hard,  glittering,  resounding  metal 
came  to  have  a  meaning  that  could  not  possibly 
pertain  to  a  well-behaved  pair  of  brass  andirons. 
Brass  in  the  face  is  a  good  thing  in  a  wrong 
place,  but  besides  making  a  capital  bearing  for  a 
rail-car  axle,  a  little  in  a  man's  purposes,  as  the 
world  goes,  is  not  so  very  bad  an  alloy  after  all. 
It  may  make  them  last  longer,  if  nothing  more. 


THE  IRON  HORSE.  35 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE    IRON    HORSE. 

THE  world  had  to  wait  a  weary  time  for  its 
wheels,  simply  because  the  successors  of  Tubal 
and  Jubal  took  something  for  granted.  It  is 
never  safe,  as  every  day's  experience  proves,  to 
take  anything  or  anybody  for  granted.  The  only 
safety  in  praising  the  average  man  is  to  hold  on 
to  your  eulogy  till  he  is  dead,  and  done  doing 
altogether.  What  the  cunning  artificers  took  for 
granted  was  this:  an  engine's  pulling  power  is 
equal  to  its  own  weight.  And  so  they  made 
wheels  with  teeth,  and  rails  with  cogs,  to  help 
the  thing  along.  They  rigged  an  anomalous,  pre- 
Adamite  fowl's  foot  with  a  corrugated  sole,  on 
each  side  of  the  engine.  These  feet  were  set 
down  one  after  the  other  upon  the  roughened 
rail,  and  pushed  the  awkward  affair  in  a  sort  of 
dromedary  way,  monstrous  to  contemplate  and 
tedious  to  wait  for.  Device  followed  device,  all 
as  vain  as  the  achievement  of  perpetual  motion, 
until  some  man,  after  a  Columbus  fashion  when 

5 


36  THE   WORLD  ON  WHEELS. 

he  played  with  a  hen's  egg,  said :  Is  this  true 
that  we  have  all  been  taking  for  granted  ?  Will 
not  an  engine '  pull  more  than  its  own  weight  ? 
Let  us  try  it.  They  did,  and  it  did.  It  trailed 
long  streets  and  great  towns  of  cars — which  were 
warehouses  and  dwellings  and  palatial  mansions ; 
which  were  sheep-folds  and  cattle-yards  and  coal 
mines  —  after  it  at  twenty,  forty,  fifty  miles  an 
hour,  as  if  real  estate  belonged  to  the  ornitho 
logical  kingdom,  and  had  taken  perpetual  flight 
like  Logan's  cuckoo. 

O 

When  you  see  a  brace  of  iron  bars  laid  par 
allel  upon  the  ground,  and  a  harp  of  wire  strung 
along  beside  it,  you  see  the  fragment  of  a  man 
that  can  never  indulge  in  a  soul  without  bor 
rowing  one.  It  is  the  line  of  a  mighty  muscle, 
and  the  thread  of  a  fine  nerve.  On  the  one, 
thoughts  fly — thoughts  that  are  "up  and  dressed" 
in  their  verbal  clothes.  On  the  other,  things. 
The  one  is  seven -ninths  of  a  Scriptural  aspira 
tion  five -ninths  realized:  "O  that  I  had  the 
wings  of  a  dove,  that  I  might  fly  away  —  and 
be  at  rest."  The  other  is  the  consolidated  arm 
of  Christendom,  the  common  carrier  of  the  mov 
able  world.  But  grand  as  it  is,  and  priceless  as 
are  the  treasures  it  is  bearing,  it  was  too  late 
for  the  holiest  burden  of  all  time.  There  was  no 
train  to  Jerusalem,  and  the  Lord  of  Life  rode  into 
the  city  in  the  humblest  guise,  upon  a  donkey. 


THE  IRON  HORSE.  37 

At  Omaha,  one  day,  I  saw  a  steam  caravan 
come  in  from  what  used  to  be  a  "  forty  years 
in  the  wilderness"  region,  direct  from  the  Golden 
Gate.  It  was  the  tea -train  from  the  Celestial 
Kingdom.  It  was  nothing  to  look  at  —  the  dingy, 
battered  cars,  the  engineer  as  if  he  had  been 
wrestling  with  a  coal-heaver  —  but  it  was  much 
to  think  of.  That  cargo  came  right  out  of  the 
West,  straight  from  the  "Drowsy  East.'1  The 
bars  of  the  trans-continental  railroad  had  careened 
the  horizon  with  their  mighty  leverage,  and  let 
the  cargo  through — the  very  cargo  for  which  they 
waited  in  the  old  days  with  their  faces  toward 
the  rising  sun,  like  a  praying  Israelite.  The  loco 
motive  had  wheeled  the  rolling  globe  a  half  rev 
olution,  brought  the  tide  of  commerce  to  the 
right-about,  like  a  soldier  upon  his  heel.  It  has 
proved  to  be  anything  but  what  it  was  sus 
pected  of  being  —  the  locomotive  has  —  for,  made 
to  be  a  common  carrier,  a  gigantic,  quicktime 
dray-horse,  it  is  a  civilizer,  a  builder  of  cities; 
and  if  the  three  Ws,  Messrs.  Wesley  Brothers 
and  Whitefield,  will  forgive  me,  a  sort  of — 
Methodist;  in  fact,  an  outright  circuit-rider,  and 
a  missionary,  withal!  The  preachers  of  flesh  and 
blood  denounced  the  seraglio  and  the  harems  of 
the  American  Desert,  but  nobody  minded  it. 
The  law-makers  frowned  upon  them,  and  they 
grew  like  a  garden  of  cucumbers ;  were  about 


38  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

as  far  beyond  their  jurisdiction  as  the  household 
economy  of  "the  man  in  the  moon."  The  loco 
motive  made  for  them  at  last,  from  Atlantic  and 
Pacific  ;  it  brought  the  Gentiles  and  the  "  Saints  " 
shoulder  to  shoulder ;  its  mountain-eagle  elocution 
rang  through  the  valleys  of  Utah,  and  sooner 
or  later  it  will  whistle  that  barbarism  of  the 
Orient  down  the  wind. 

The  locomotive  is  a  civilizer.  It  happened  to 
the  writer  to  witness  the  splendid  display  of 
the  Missouri  State  Fair  at  Kansas  City,  that 
young  Chicago  of  the  red  Missouri.  Altogether 
it  was  the  most  admirable  display  of  agricultural 
products  ever  seen  in  the  Far  West.  Than  the 
artistic  grouping  of  apples  in  vast  variety,  noth 
ing  finer  was  ever  witnessed.  They  were  literally 
"  apples  of  gold  in  pictures  of  silver."  Without 
spot  or  blemish,  better  than  ever  grew  in  the 
Garden  of  Eden,  they  were  all  from  the  orchards 
of  the  wilderness.  But  the  most  interesting  and 
suggestive  department,  as  having  direct  reference 
to  the  civilizing  agency  of  the  locomotive,  was 
one  surmounted  with  the  legend,  "  The  Great 
American  Desert." 

Not  a  thing  in  it  that  did  not  come  from  the 
once  sterile  plain  or  inaccessible  mountain  region; 
that  was  not  grown  in  the  very  realm  set  down 
upon  maps  hardly  twenty  years  old  as  a  path 
less  and  arid  waste ;  and  not  a  figure  pictured 


THE  IRON  HORSE.  39 

in  it,  but  a  bewildered  buffalo  or  a  mounted 
savage ;  that  was  not  made  possible  by  the  magic 
touch  of  railroad  iron.  What  a  maker  of  new 
and  improved  maps  is  the  locomotive !  That 
department  was  worthy  to  be  the  coat-of-arms 
of  the  Angel  of  Abundance.  Above  all,  were 
the  antlers  of  the  elk,  like  the  branches  of  a 
blasted  tree;  and  the  shaggy  head  of  a  buffalo, 
curly  as  the  head  of  the  heathen  god  of  wine. 
Then  there  were  stalks  of  corn  that  would  amaze 
you,  and  as  full  of  ears  as  Mr.  Spurgeon's  audi 
ences.  There  Avere  squashes  and  melons  and 
pumpkin-pies  in  "the  original  package,"  in  whose 
case  the  usual  law  of  limitation  had  been  sus 
pended,  and  they  had  grown  on  without  let  or 
hindrance.  Wheat  that  Illinois  would  have  been 
proud  of.  Minerals  of  wonderful  richness  and 
beauty.  Grapes  in  clusters  of  ideal  symmetry 
and  size.  Apples  as  of  a  fresh  and  new  crea 
tion  that  no  blighting  bug  or  worm  had  yet 
found  out.  Indeed,  think  of  anything  you  like 
best  that  grows  in  a  garden,  and  it  was  there, 
all  from  the  Great  American  Desert.  There  was 
an  address  to  the  assembled  thousands,  but  noth 
ing  so  eloquent  as  this  upon  the  power  of  the 
locomotive  as  a  cultivator  and  civilizer.  But  for 
itj  the  products  would  never  have  been  here  in 
Kansas  City,  nor  the  producers  there  in  the 
wilderness. 


40  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

Take  the  Illinois  Central  Railway ;  it  was  to 
that  splendid  State  what  the  rod  of  Moses  was 
to  the  rock  in  the  wilderness.  It  smote  it  into 
life  and  luxuriance.  Down  from  Chicago  to  Cairo, 
just  as  many  miles  as  there  are  days  in  a  year, 
down  from  Dunleith  to  that  same  capital  of 
modern  Egypt,  four  hundred  and  fifty-six  miles, 
it  went, —  in  its  time  the  stateliest  railway  en 
terprise  in  the  world.  Had  you  been  a  passen 
ger  on  a  southward-bound  train  of  that  road,  say 
sixteen  years  ago,  you  would  have  traversed  a 
region  of  magnificent  possibilities.  True,  the  lo 
comotive  would  have  hurried  you  through  un- 
fenced  corn-fields  nine  miles  long,  whose  rows 
swung  round  as  the  cars  flew  on,  like  vast  bri 
gades  on  drill,  but  you  would  have  struck  out, 
at  last,  upon  the  untilled  and  almost  untrodden 
pastures  of  God.  You  could  never  forget  it. 
The  month  was  September.  The  train  had 
reached  the  center  of  a  grand  prairie.  The  few 
passengers  debarked,  and  the  train  ran  on  a 
half  mile  and  left  us  alone.  Around  on  every 
side,  the  prairie  curved  up  to  the  edge  of  the 
sky.  It  was  a  mighty  bowl,  and  we,  served  up 
in  the  bottom  of  it,  a  very  diminutive  bill  of 
fare  for  such  a  tremendous  dish.  The  gaudy 
yellow  and  red  Fall  flowers  ornamented  the  bowl 
like  some  quaint  pattern  for  Chinese  ware.  Not 
a  tree  nor  a  living  thing  in  sight ;  not  a  sign 


THE  IRON  HORSE.  41 

that  man  had  ever  been  an  occupant  of  the 
planet,  but  something  that  looked  like  a  cigar- 
box  high  up  the  side  of  the  bowl,  arid  was,  in 
fact,  a  human  habitation.  The  great  blue  sky 
was  set  down  exactly  upon  the  edge  of  the  dish, 
like  the  cover  of  a  tureen,  and  there  we  were, 
pitifully  belittled.  The  feeling  was  oppressive. 
We  had  nothing  small  or  mean  with  which  to 
compare  ourselves  and,  be  somebody  again,  and 
were  glad  to  have  the  train  back  once  more,  that 
we  might  clamber  in  and  be  safe  out  of  the 
vastness. 

On  we  went  till  the  pleasant  little  village  of 
Anna  was  reached.  The  country  was  full  of 
peaches.  They  ripened  and  fell  beside  the  roads. 
The  swine  were  fattened  upon  them.  The  people 
had  just  begun  to  learn  that  peaches  were  money 
in  disguise.  The  railroad  had  just  taught  them 
this  lesson  of  finance.  It  had  made  Chicago,  and 
Union  County  peaches  possible  combinations.  But 
they  were  only  beginners,  and  when  you  asked 
a  man  perched  upon  a  wagon-load  of  Sunnysides 
the  price,  he  said,  "How  many,  stranger?"  and 
when  you  replied,  "  A  couple  of  dozen,"  the 
answer  came  back  like  the  shutting  of  a  jack- 
knife  blade,  "  Take  'em  along  an'  welcome ! " 
The  locomotive  whistled  us  to  quarters,  and  by- 
and-by  the  speed  slackened  to  eight  miles  an 
hour.  The  windows  were  garnished  with  heads 
t* 


42  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

in  a  twinkling.  There  was  a  deer  on  the  track, 
and  bound  south,  like  ourselves.  The  engineer 
crowded  him  a  little,  and  throwing  back  his  head, 
away  he  went  over  ties  and  culverts  and  little 
bridges,  the  cow-catcher  turned  into  a  deer-catcher 
for  the  moment.  Again  the  engineer  would  let 
up  a  little  to  give  the  fellow  a  chance,  and  so 
for  miles,  till  at  last,  as  if  he  had  wings  to  his 
heels,  he  bolted  the  track,  bounded  over  a  little 
knoll  and  was  gone. 

Now,  find  that  big  bowl  of  ours  if  you  can ! 
Farms  checker  the  prairie.  Villages  dot  the 
broad  landscape  like  flocks  of  sheep.  Cities  with 
mayors  to  them  have  sprung  up.  The  locomo 
tive  brought  the  builders,  brought  the  buildings. 
In  a  word,  the  motive  was  the  locomotive.  Take 
the  Chicago  &  Northwestern  Railway  across  the 
States  of  Illinois  and  Iowa,  across  the  Rock  and 
the  Mississippi  to  the  banks  of  the  Missouri,  four 
hundred  and  eighty-eight  miles  to  Council  Bluffs. 
Seven  years  ago  its  western  terminus  was  New 
Jefferson,  Iowa.  There  you  took  private  convey 
ance  for  a  journey  of  one  hundred  and  eighty 
miles  to  the  Missouri.  You  launched  out  over 
the  great  swells  of  prairie,  rising  and  falling,  rising 
and  falling,  till  you  almost  caught  yourself  list 
ening  for  the  wash  of  the  heavy  sea.  Little 
hamlets  at  long  intervals  showed  like  unnamed 
islets.  The  wolf  looked  after  you  as  you  passed. 


THE  IRON  HORSE.  43 

The  hawks  sat  in  rows  on  the  telegraph  wire 
over  which,  that  minute,  a  message  was  flashing 
to  California,  the  little  hawks  all  facing  us  with 
their  aquiline  countenances,  like  so  many  young 
Romans.  The  tall  prairie  grass  waved  desolately 
in  the  wind.  The  prairie  poultry  disputed  the 
right  of  way  with  the  advancing  horses.  The 
quick  tick  of  the  locusts,  all  winding  their 
watches  at  once,  sounded  loud  and  clear  in  the 
silence.  Dismantled  stage  barns  roofed  with  prai 
rie  hay  were  sparsely  sprinkled  along  the  route. 
At  last  we  struck  out  upon  a  thirty-mile  stretch 
without  a  human  habitation.  The  clouds  and  the 
sun  played  tricks  with  the  landscape.  Now  you 
thought  you  saw  a  field  of  red  wheat  ripe  for 
the  sickle,  and  now  a  scraggy  old  orchard  dwarfed 
in  the  distance.  The  one  was  a  family  of  little 
oaks,  the  other  the  long  tawny  grass  of  the  prai 
rie  slopes. 

It  was  a  virgin  world.  You  had  escaped  from 
the  clank  of  engines  and  the  clamor  of  men.  The 
air  swept  by  without  a  taint  of  smoke  or  any 
human  naughtiness.  Your  pulse  played  with  an. 
evener  beat.  You  were  not  quite  sure  you  ever 
wanted  to  get  out  of  the  wilderness  at  all.  You 
meet  now  and  then  a  "  freighter,"  as  the  ox- 
expressmen  of  plain  and  prairie  are  called,  with 
their  noisy  tongues  and  explosive  whips,  and  their 
four,  six,  eight  yokes  of  lumbering  oxen  trailing 


44  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

a  yet  more  lumbering  wagon.  Then  you  come 
to  Ida  Grove,  with  a  hospitable  tavern  in  it. 
Then  fifty  miles  down  the  Maple  Valley,  as  un 
peopled  and  peaceful  as  the  Happy  Valley  of 
Rasselas.  Seven  years  ago!  And  now  it  is  farms 
and  houses  and  villages  all  the  way.  Churches 
point  their  slender  white  fingers  towards  the  sky. 
School-houses  hum  with  the  busy  tongues  of  the 
disciples  of  "  b,  a,  ba,  k,  e,  r,  ker,  baker."  Rail 
way  trains  go  scurrying  along.  The  locomotive 
has  brought  the  world  to  the  wilderness,  and  took 
back  for  "return  freight"  the  wilderness  to  the 
world.  The  old  trick  of  the  clouds  and  the  sun 
shine  has  been  played  again.  There  are  sweeps 
of  ripened  grain  upon  the  slopes.  There  are 
orchards  that  are  not  oaks. 


PLUNGING  INTO   THE   WILDERNESS.  45 


CHAPTER    VI. 


PLUNGING    INTO    THE    WILDERNESS. 

have  discovered  that  our  next-door  neigh 
bor,  the  moon,  is  about  the  temperature  of  boil 
ing  water.  What  a  splendid  locomotive  was 
spoiled  just  to  make  a  moon  !  Those  of  us  who 
are  forty  years  old  have  been  spending  the  last 
twenty  in  unlearning  much  they  had  persuaded 
us  to  believe  in  the  first  ten.  No  Great  Afri 
can  Desert.  No  Great  American  Desert.  No 
giants  in  Patagonia,  except  little  ones.  No  Wil 
liam  Tell,  no  apple,  no  target  practice.  "  G. 
Washington"  never  had  a  hatchet.  No  Mael 
strom  off  the  Norwegian  coast.  No  "White  Nile 
mystery.  Homer  never  wrote  Homer,  nor  Ossian 
Ossian.  There  are  two  things,  two  blessed  doubts, 
that  we  know  as  little  about  as  we  ever  did,  to- 
wit  i  Who  wrote  the  Letters  of  Junius  ?  and  Is 
there  an  open  Polar  Sea  ?  I  sincerely  hope  they 
will  never  find  out. 

The   locomotive   is   aggressive.     It   assaults   and 
captures   and   tames   the    wilderness.      You   are    a 


46  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

passenger  on  the  Missouri,  Kansas  and  Texas 
Railway,  that  can  swing  you  down  through  Mis 
souri  and  the  Indian  Territory  and  Texas  to  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico.  You  embark  at  Sedalia,  the 
most  vigorous  inland  town  in  Missouri  except 
Kansas  City.  The  cars  are  as  elegant  as  any  in 
America,  the  track  smooth  to  a  wonder,  and 
altogether  the  perfection  of  locomotive  civiliza 
tion.  Away  you  glide.  Fort  Scott  is  passed,  and 
the  train  begins  to  show  queer  characteristics. 
The  men  that  get  aboard  are  leaner  and  longer, 
with  a  swinging  stride  like  so  many  panthers. 
They  carry  brown  rifles,  they  are  girt  about  with 
a  small  armament  of  revolvers.  They  are  in  full 
blossom  as  to  the  brims  of  their  hats,  like  sun 
flowers.  They  talk  deer,  horse,  bear,  turkey. 
They  brevet  you,  and  you  become  captain  or 
colonel  by  the  breath  of  their  mouths,  which  is 
tobacco.  There  are  sleepy-looking  dogs  in  the 
baggage-car,  with  ears  like  little  leather  aprons. 
You  see  more  flat  women  in  sunbonnets  than  you 
ever  saw  before  in  one  place.  Three  or  four  exag 
gerated  creatures  lie  in  a  heap  in  a  corner.  They 
are  the  half-way  station  between  a  large  rabbit 
and  a  small  donkey.  They  are  ears  with  bodies 
to  them.  It  is  your  first  sight  of  a  buck-rabbit. 
You  hear  border  talk  and  see  border  manners, 
in  cars  finished  to  the  last  touch  of  pier-glass 
polish.  You  look  up,  and  lo,  a  Cherokee  at  your 


PLUNGING  INTO   THE   WILDERNESS.  47 

elbow!  There  he  stands,  as  if  a  fresh  creation, 
and  positively  his  first  appearance  anywhere.  His 
eyes,  like  black  beads  suddenly  struck  with  in 
telligence,  had  taken  you  all  in  before  you  saw 
him  at  all.  You  begin  to  realize  where  you  are 
—  that  old  Fort  Holmes  is  at  your  right  and 
Little  Rock  at  your  left ;  that  you  are  in  a 
country  with  such  places  in  it  as  Elk  City, 
Panther,  Yellville,  Crockett  and  Waxahatchie. 

Again,  you  are  on  the  Atchison,  Topeka  and 
Santa  Fe  Railway.  You  land  at  Emporia,  Kansas, 
one  hundred  and  twenty-eight  miles  from  Kansas 
City.  The  locomotive  breasts  the  prairie  in  pan 
oply  as  glittering  as  anywhere.  You  find  a  brisk 
and  busy  town,  well-filled  stores,  elegant  houses, 
capital  schools,  a  public  library,  and  intelligent 
and  hospitable  people.  The  railroad  was  Pha 
raoh's  daughter  to  it.  It  found  the  little  Moses 

O 

in  the  bulrushes,  and  made  Emporia  a  marvel  in 
the  wilderness.  You  see  last  week's  New  York 
fashions  in  the  streets,  the  latest  works  of  litera 
ture  upon  the  tables.  The  pretty  dining-room 
girl  startles  your  left  ear  at  breakfast  with,  " Buf 
falo-steak  or  antelope?"  You  regard  her  in  a 
dazed  way,  and  ask  "  What  ?  "  "  Buffalo  -  steak 
or  antelope?"  and  you  say  "Both!"  A  citizen, 
on  hospitable  thoughts  intent,  promises  to  take 
you  out  antelope  -  hunting.  You  faintly  enquire 
"  Where?"  and  the  reply  is,  "  O,  ten  or  a  dozen 


48  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

miles  ! "  You  begin  to  understand  things,  and  to 
see  that  the  locomotive  is  trailing  civilization 
along  after  it  wherever  it  goes. 

Again  on  the  train:  A  man  enters  the  car  who 
toes  straight  out  the  way  he  is  going.  He  has  a  red 
sash,  silk,  and  Chinese  at  that,  about  his  waist. 
The  glitter  of  a  silver  -  mounted  revolver  at  his 
left  side,  a  shady  sombrero  upon  his  head,  an  un 
civilized  nugget  of  gold  for  a  breastpin,  a  small 
log -chain  of  the  same  material  a -swing  upon  his 
breast,  buttons  up  and  down  the  side  seams  of 
his  pantaloons,  square-shouldered,  broader  at  the 
breast  than  equatorially.  There  you  have  him, 
and  isn't  he  cool?  He  gives  you  a  square  look 
with  both  eyes.  He  seats  himself  upon  the  crim 
son  cushions  as  indifferently  as  if  he  had  never 
seen  anything  else.  It  is  an  American  turned 
into  a  Mexican  herder,  arrayed  in  his  holiday 
clothes,  and  bound  for  St.  Louis.  He  is  at  home 
on  horseback,  is  at  home  anywhere,  and  can 
throw  a  lariat  like  a  savage.  He  takes  an  apple 
out  of  one  pocket,  a  desperate-looking  knife  out 
of  another;  a  little  jerk  of  the  wrist,  and  about 
ei^ht  inches  of  steel  blade  flash  out,  he  looks  at 

O 

you  a  second,  and — carves  his  apple!  Then  that 
cutlery  becomes  a  toothpick  of  the  Arkansas 
patent.  He  will  tell  you  it  is  a  frog-sticker. 

I  should  like  to  see  the  railroad-hog,  a  variety 
in  the  animal  kingdom  of  which  there  is  some- 


PLUNGING  INTO  THE   WILDERNESS,  49 

thing  to  be  said  by-and-by,  get  his  seat  while 
he  is  in  the  baggage-car  taking  a  smoke.  If 
carved  ox  is  beef,  and  manufactured  calf  is  veal, 
that  hog  would  be  in  danger  of  turning  into 
pork.  Though  the  herder  is  quiet,  civil,  self- 
reliant,  yet  he  is  a  peripatetic  Bill  of  Rights. 
He  is  his  own  Legislature,  and  the  first  law  is 
self-defence.  He  answers  your  questions  in  a 
quaint,  sententious  way.  He  will  tell  you  that 
a  great  herd  of  those  Southwestern  cattle  look 
like  a  drove  of  horns  with  legs  and  tails  to 
them ;  that  they  all  think  a  man  has  four  feet, 
and  is  half  horse.  They  seldom  see  him  except 
mounted,  and  when  they  do,  that  man  must  make 
"a  right  smart"  use  of  the  two  feet  he  has  left, 
to  escape  being  gored  and  trampled  to  death. 
Those  illogical  cattle  have  no  idea  of  the  con 
crete.  The  herder  loves  the  free  life,  the  swift 
motion,  the  abundant  air,  and  the  elbow-room  of 
the  plains.  He  has  not  taken  as  much  medicine 
as  you  can  put  on  a  knife-blade  in  eight  years. 
When  he  is  "under  the  weather,"  he  just  curls 
down  somewhere,  and  sleeps  it  off  like  a  dog. 

Yonder  are  a  couple  of  rough  men,  with  North 
easterly  voices,  and  shaggy  about  the  head  as  a 
couple  of  buffaloes.  They  have  just  come  in  from 
killing  two  hundred  of  those  "  cattle  upon  a 
thousand  hills."  They  think  they  are  hunters. 
They  are  unacquainted  with  Webster,  and  miss 


50  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

the  right  word,  for  they  are  unlicensed  butchers, 
and  ought  to  be  punished.  They  had  slain  the 
two  hundred  for  their  tongues  alone,  and  left  the 
great  carcasses  a  reckless  waste  upon  the  plains. 
If  those  fellows  could  only  have  an  Egyptian 
"lean  year"  all  to  themselves,  I  should  like  to 
put  them  on  a  strictly  vegetable  diet,  and  turn 
them  out  to  graze  with  Nebuchadnezzar.  Such 
touches  of  border-life  give  a  Far  Western  train  a 
character  of  its  own  that  is  by  no  means  un 
pleasant.  You  feel  something  as  you  did  when 
you  entered  the  National  Conservatory  at  Wash 
ington,  breathed  the  scented  air  of  the  home 
made  tropic  and  saw  the  great-leafed  palms,  and 
waited  a  minute  for  an  elephant  to  come  out. 

But  let  nobody  think  that  the  world  on  wheels 
in  Kansas,  Nebraska,  Texas  and  the  Plains  essen 
tially  differs  from  the  same  world  trundling  about 
in  New  England.  Equal  courtesy,  heartier  cordi 
ality,  just  as  much  intelligence  as  characterize  the 
route  from  New  York  to  Boston.  Writing  of 
Boston :  A  certain  publishing  house  in  that  city 
once  sent  a  letter  to  a  Chicago  citizen,  and  a 
man  to  bring  it,  asking  for  a  list  of  those  places 
in  the  West  where  the  people  would  be  "  up  to 
their  publications,"  for  that  is  the  way  they  put 
it.  The  Chicago  citizen  referred  them  to  a  great 
fat  Gazetteer,  and  the  inquisition  ended. 


VICIOUS  ANIMALS.  51 


CHAPTER    VII. 


VICIOUS     ANIMALS. 

A  great  many  animals  get  on  board  first-class 
passenger  trains  that  should  have  been  shipped 
in  box-cars,  with  sliding  doors  on  the  sides. 
There  is  your  Railway  Hog  —  the  man  who  takes 
two  seats,  turns  them  vis-a-vis,  and  makes  a 
letter  X  of  himself,  so  as  to  keep  them  all. 
Meanwhile,  women,  old  enough  to  be  his  mother, 
pass  feebly  along  the  crowded  car,  vainly  seek 
ing  a  seat,  but  he  gives  a  threatening  grunt,  and 
they  timidly  look  the  other  way.  He  is  gener 
ally  rotund  as  to  voice  and  person,  well-fed,  but 
not  well-bred.  Not  always,  however.  I  have 
seen  a  meek-faced  man,  as  thin  and  pale  as  an 
ivory  paper-cutter,  who  looked  as  if  he  had  just 
gone  with  the  consumption,  who  made  an  X  of 
himself  as  if  he  were  the  displayed  emblem  of 
porcine  starvation.  Have  you  ever  thought  of 
taking  up  burglary  for  a  livelihood?  Be  a  burg 
lar  if  you  must,  but  a  Railway  Hog  never !  Had 
the  ancestors  of  this  type  of  creature  only  been 


52  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

among  the  herd  that  ran  down  that  "  steep 
place  into  the  sea,"  what  a  comfort  it  would 
have  been  ! 

Did  you  ever  see  the  Bouncers  ?  They  are 
young,  they  are  girls,  they  always  go  in  pairs, 
and  they  bring  a  breeze.  Like  the  man  whose 
voice  in  secret  prayer  could  be  heard  throughout 
the  neighborhood,  they  discuss  private  affairs  in 
a  public  manner.  They  throw  scraps  of  loud, 
laughing  talk  at  you  much  as  if  they  were  eat 
ing  a  luncheon.  It  is  November.  The  wind 
comes  out  of  the  keen  North.  Be-shawled,  be- 
cloaked,  be-furred,  never  laying  off  fur  or  feather, 
they  open  the  windows  with  a  bounce,  and  there 
they  sit  snug  as  Russian  bears,  and  the  wind 
blowing  full  upon  you  seated  just  behind.  You 
venture  to  beg,  after  freezing  through,  that  they 
will  close  the  windows  and  let  you  come  to  a 
thaw.  What  a  word  "  supercilious "  is,  to  be 
sure !  Up  go  their  two  pairs  of  eyebrows,  and 
down  come  the  windows,  both  with  a  bounce. 
Then  they  grow  sultry,  and  one  whisks  off  "  a 
cloud"  or  something  square  in  your  eyes,  and 
the  other  flings  back  her  fur  cape  on  to  the  top 
of  your  head,  sees  what  she  has  done,  brushes 
the  garment  a  little,  and  says  nothing  —  to  you. 
The  train  halts  at  some  station.  Up  go  the 
windows  and  out  the  two  heads,  and  a  rattling 
fire  of  talk  is  exchanged  with  more  Bouncers  on 


VICIOUS  ANIMALS.  53 

the  platform  —  all  loud,  talk  and  talkers,  as  a 
scarlet  vest  and  a  saffron  neck-tie.  By-and-by 
they  fall  to  fixing  their  back-hair,  smoothing  their 
eyebrows  with  a  licked  finger,  and  making  other 
preparations  to  leave  the  poor  company  they  have 
managed  to  get  into. 

Lest  they  be  forgotten,  let  me  impound  cer 
tain  offending  people  in  a  few  paragraphs  just 
here,  that,  like  that  place  in  the  Valley  of  Hin- 
nom,  shall  be  a  sort  of  Railway  Travelers'  Tophet. 
Capital  punishment  should  not  be  abolished  until 
they  have  all  been  executed  at  least  once: 

The  man  whose  salivary  glands  are  the  most 
active  part  of  him,  who  spits  on  your  side  of  the 
aisle  when  you  are  not  looking,  and  spoils  the 
lady's  dress  who  occupies  the  seat  after  him. 

The  man  who  puts  a  pair  of  feet,  guiltless  of 
water  as  a  dromedary's,  upon  the  back  of  your 
seat,  and  wants  you  to  beg  his  pardon  for  being 
so  near  them. 

The  man  who  eats  Switzer  cheese,  onions  and 
sausages  from  over  the  sea,  in  the  night  time. 

The  man  who  prowls  from  car  to  car,  and 
leaves  the  doors  wide  open  in  the  winter  time. 

The  boy  who  pulls  the  distracted  accordeon 
by  the  tail,  he  having  several  mothers  and  six 
small  sisters  to  feed,  and  then  wishes  you  to  pay 
him  something  for  "  cruelty  to  animals." 

The   boy   who   throws   prize   packages  of  impo- 


54  THE   WORLD    ON  WHEELS. 

sition  at  you,  and  insists  you  shall  buy  the 
"Banditti  of  the  Prairie,"  or  the  "  Life  of  Ellen 
Jewett,"  or  the  pictorial  edition  of  the  Walworth 
Family,  or  a  needlebook,  or  a  bag  of  popped 
corn,  or  some  vegetable  ivory,  and  wakes  you 
out  of  a  pleasant  doze  to  see  if  you  wouldn't 
like  a  Railroad  guide. 

The  man  who,  with  a  metallic  voice,  in  which 
brass  is  as  plain  as  a  brass  knuckle,  does  the 
wit  for  the  car ;  who  tells  the  train  -  boy  he  '11 
get  his  growth  before  the  train  gets  through ; 
who  talks  of  stepping  off  to  pick  whortleberries, 
and  then  stepping  on  again;  who  says  that 
orders  have  been  issued  to  the  engineer  never 
to  heat  the  water  hot  enough  to  scald  anybody; 
who  talks  in  the  night,  and  makes  it  hideous. 
There  is  no  apparent  reason  why  this  man  may 
not  be  made  shorter  by  a  head  immediately. 
Let  him  be  guillotined.  "Brevity  is  the  soul  of 
wit." 

What  shall  we  do  with  her? — the  woman  who 
sails  through  the  crowded  car,  and  brings  to 
beside  you  like  a  monument,  looks  as  if  you  had 
no  business  to  be  born  without  her  consent,  and 
says  in  a  clear,  incisive  voice,  that  cuts  you  like 
a  knife,  "  I  know  a  gentleman  when  I  see  him ! " 
Is  there  a  needle  or  something  in  the  cushion? 
You  are  seventy,  and  have  the  rheumatism.  She 
is  twenty -five,  full  of  strength  and  health,  and 


VI CIO  US  ANIMALS.  55 

with  a  pair  of  supporters  of  her  own  as  sturdy 
as  the  legs  of  a  piano.  But  what  can  you  do? 
You  feel  red,  and  draw  your  head  into  your 
coat-collar  like  a  modest  and  retiring  mud-turtle, 
and  pretend  not  to  hear.  But  there  she  stands, 
and  a  young  fellow  across  the  way  with  a  sky- 
blue  necktie  just  lighted  under  his  chin,  laughs 
out  loud  at  the  situation,  and  you  think,  as 
pretty  much  all  the  blood  you  have,  has  gone 
into  your  head  and  ears,  you  will  go  and  warm 
your  feet.  So  you  get  up,  with  joints  creaking 
like  a  gate,  and  hobble  to  the  stove,  where  you 
stand  and  bow  to  the  stove-pipe  in  an  extra 
ordinary  way,  and  catch  it  around  the  waist  now 
and  then,  and  all  the  while  she  sits  in  your 
place  like  a  fallen  angel.  "  What  shall  we  do 
with  her?"  Send  her  to  the  tailor  to  be  meas 
ured,  and  "let  her  pass  for  a  man!" 

Everybody  has  met  the  man  on  a  railway  train 
who,  as  no  one  ever  learned  his  name  because 
no  one  ever  cared  to,  may  be  designated  as 
"Might  I?"  with  a  rising  slide.  All  sorts  of  a 
man  to  look  at,  he  is  but  one  sort  of  a  man  to 
encounter,  to  -  wit :  an  animated  cork-screw,  for 
ever  trying  to  pull  the  cork  from  the  bottle  of 
your  personal  identity.  "  Might  I  ? "  begins  his 
acquaintance  by  stealing;  stealing  a  look  at  you 
out  of  the  tail  of  his  eye,  the  meanest  kind  of 
pilfering,  though  the  law  doesn't  mention  it. 


56  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

Then  he  begins  upon  you.  He  says,  "  Might  I 
ask  how  far  you  are  traveling?  Might  I  inquire 
what  business  you  follow  ?  Might  I  inquire  if 
you  are  married?  Might  I  ask  your  name?" 
His  talk  is  as  lively  as  a  inite-y  cheese,  and  he 
assaults  you  like  the  New  England  Catechism. 
This  man  has  been  growled  at,  snapped  at,  re 
quested  to  go  beyond  the  possible  limit  of  frost, 
but  he  cuts  and  comes  again  the  very  first  oppor 
tunity.  "  Might  I?"  has  never  been  put  to  death 
by  anybody.  The  remedy  could  be  tried  once, 
and  if  it  failed  to  quiet,  and  only  killed  him, 
we  should  know  better  than  to  try  it  again. 

The  Railway  Opossum  is  not  vicious  but  he  is 
amusing.  He  enters  a  car  that  is  rapidly  filling, 
drops  into  a  whole  seat,  adjusts  his  blanket, 
chucks  his  soft  hat  under  his  head,  swings  up  his 
feet  to  a  horizontal  —  all  this  in  two  minutes  — 
and  is  asleep  !  Objurgations  fall  upon  him  like 
the  sweet  rain.  Shakes  fail  to  disturb  him,  and 
no  one  ever  tried  Shakespeare.  Tender  women 
passing  by  say,  "  O,  he  7s  asleep  —  perhaps  worn 
out  with  long  travel ; "  and  not  till  that  swarm 
settles,  and  he  thinks  himself  sure  of  his  elbow- 
room,  does  he  open  an  eye  and  "  come  to,"  and 
grow  as  lively  as  opossums  ever  get. 

They  board  the  train  —  they  two  —  he  in  white 
gloves,  new  clothes,  and  a  white  satin  necktie ; 
she  in  a  lavender  silk,  a  bridal  hat,  and  a  small 


VICIOUS  ANIMALS.  57 

blush.  Seated,  they  incline  towards  each  other 
like  the  slanting  side-pieces  of  the  letter  A.  He 
throws  one  arm  around  her,  and  she  reclines  on 
his  shoulder  like  a  lily-pad.  They  whisper,  they 
giggle,  they  talk  low,  they  contemplate  each  other 
like  a  couple  of  china  cats  on  a  mantle-piece.  He 
takes  a  gentle  pinch  of  her  cheek  as  if  she  were 
maccaboy,  when  she  is  only  a  very  verdant  girl. 
She  sits  with  her  hand  in  his,  like  a  mourner 
at  a  funeral  —  the  funeral  of  propriety.  They 
punctuate  their  twitter  of  talk  with  pouncing 
kisses.  They  fly  at  each  other  like  a  brace  of 
humming-birds.  The  sun  shines.  The  car  is 
filled  with  strangers.  They  are  the  target  for 
thirty  pairs  of  eyes.  They  smell  of  cologne  or 
patchouly  or  —  musquashes!  They  are  the  sor 
ghum  of  the  honeymoon  —  saccharine  lunatics, 
and  there  they  are  —  turned  loose  upon  the  public  ! 

The  Union  Pacific  Company  has  made  provi 
sion  to  shut  such  people  up.  They  have  just 
begun  to  run  a  lunatic  asylum  with  every  San 
Francisco  train,  but  they  give  it  an  astronomical 
name.  They  call  it  a  "honeymoon  car."  The 
Company  deserves  well  of  the  public  for  keeping 
traveling  idiots  out  of  sight.  In  certain  circum 
stances  it  is  difficult  for  some  people  to  avoid 
being  fools. 

The  ?  that  wears  clothes,  and  goes  away  from 
home  by  the  cars,  and  afflicts  the  conductor  and 


58  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

the  brakeman  and  his  traveling  companions  —  he 
is  of  recent  origin.  There  is  no  account  of  him 
in  Job.  The  Patriarch  had  a  great  many  uncom 
fortable  things,  but  he  did  n't  have  him.  Had 
he  been  let  loose  upon  Pharaoh,  that  stiff-necked 
Egyptian  would  have  "  let  the  people  go "  be 
fore  breakfast.  His  natural  diet  is  conductors 
and  brakemen,  but  he  will  not  refuse  anybody. 
He  has  told  the  man  before  him  and  the  woman 
behind  him  where  he  wants  to  go,  and  shown 
his  ticket  and  his  trunk  check,  and  asked  if  this 
is  the  right  train,  and  if  the  check  is  good,  and 
when  he  will  get  there,  and  how  far  it  is,  and 
whether  he  knows  anybody  there.  His  victim 
pronounces  the  check  genuine,  gets  out  his 
"  Guide,"  hunts  up  the  place,  ascertains  the 
distance,  tells  him  the  time,  and  doesn't  know 
anybody  there. 

The  conductor  enters,  collecting  tickets  and 
fare,  has  a  heavy  train,  and  it  is  only  five  miles 
to  the  first  station.  ?  makes  for  him  on  sight, 
tries  to  get  him  by  the  collar  or  button  or  elbow, 
and  tells  him  where  he  wants  to  go,  and  shows 
his  check,  and  inquires  if  this  is  the  right  train,, 
and  when  he  will  get  there,  and  how  far  it  is. 
The  conductor  answers  him,  nips  a  spiteful  nick 
out  of  his  ticket,  and  hurries  on.  ?  returns  to 
his  seat,  and  watches  for  a  brakeman.  Him  he 
catches  by  the  coat-tail,  and  he  asks  him  if  he 


VICIOUS  ANIMALS.  59 

is  on  the  right  train,  and  if  the  check  is  good, 
and  if  he  thinks  his  baggage  is  aboard,  and  when 
he  will  get  there,  and  how  far  it  is.  The  brake- 
man  has  seen  him  before,  and  his  replies  are 
too  short  for  a  weak  stomach,  but  he  tells  him. 

The  last  morsel  finished,  he  turns  to  you,  and 
he  says,  as  a  woman  who  deliberates  and  is 
therefore  lost,  "  I  think  now  I  am  on  the  wrong 
train.  I  thought  so  all  the  while,"  and  then 
he  tells  you  where  he  wants  to  go,  and  shows 
you  his  check,  and  asks  you  if  you  think,  it  is 
good  for  the  trunk,  and  how  far  it  is,  and  when 
he  will  get  there,  and  you  tell  him.  The  con 
ductor  returns,  he  makes  a  grab  at  him,  and  he 
wants  him  to  tell  him  when  he  will  get  there, 
and  who  keeps  the  best  house,  and  how  far  it 
is  from  the  depot,  and  whether  that  is  really  the 
best  house  or  some  other,  and  whether  he  meant 
three  o'clock  in  the  forenoon  or  afternoon,  and 
the  conductor  doesn't  tell  him. 


60  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 


HABITS    OF    ENGINES    AND    TRAIN    MEN. 

A  locomotive  has  two  habits.  It  drinks  and 
it  smokes.  It  seems  to  take  comfort  in  drinking 
at  a  liberal  river,  rather  than  where  the  draught 
is  trickled  out  to  it  through  a  stingy  pipe  on  a 
dry  prairie.  Climbing  heavy  grades  involves  hard 
drinking.  On  the  Mount  Washington  Railway, 
where  you  travel  a  mile  and  rise  nineteen  hun 
dred  feet  in  an  hour  and  half,  the  thirsty  engine 
disposes  of  eighteen  hundred  gallons  of  water  — 
all  dissipated  in  breath. 

During  the  late  war  they  often  watered  engines 
from  pails,  as  they  would  ponies.  Perhaps  you 
have  sat  upon  a  bank,  not  of  thyme  but  of  time, 
at  midnight,  in  Tennessee,  with  suspicious  cedars 
all  about  within  hailing  distance  —  trees  that  often 
shed  queer  fruit  in  a  vigorous  way — waiting  for 
the  train-men  to  bring  locomotive  refreshments  of 
light  wood  and  pails  of  water.  Never  since  then 
has  the  smoke  of  an  engine  been  welcome,  but 
often,  in  those  times  when  the  nights  were  "  un 
ruly,"  would  the  burning  red  cedar  load  the  air 


HABITS  OF  ENGINES  AND   TRAIN  MEN.  61 

with  a  suspicion  of  sweet  incense  that  was  really 
grateful.  Possibly  it  was  associated  with  the  per 
fume  of  the  cedar  bows  of  boyhood,  when  the 
flight  of  one's  own  arrow,  sped  from  the  spring 
ing  wood,  was  grander  than  any  flight  of  elo 
quence  the  archer  has  heard  since.  To-day,  a 
whiff  of  cedar  will  carry  you  faster  and  farther 
than  a  swift  engine.  It  Avill  take  almost  any  half- 
century-old  boy  back  to  the  era  of  blue-striped 
trousers  and  roundabouts,  and  girls  with  white 
pantalettes  gathered  at  the  bottom ;  to  the  time 
when  bow  and  arrow,  windmill  and  kite,  jack- 
knife,  fishhooks  and  tops,  "  two  old  cat,"  Satur 
day  afternoons  and  training-days  were  so  many 
letters  in  the  alphabet  of  happiness,  and  he  will 
not  be  a  bit  worse  for  the  tr-ip,  but  younger, 
gentler  and  more  human. 

Writing  of  boys :  till  the  writer  was  sixteen 
years  old  he  never  saw  a  deacon,  that  he  couldn't 
tell  him  as  quick  as  he  could  a  squirrel.  Some 
times  they  were  tall  and  thin,  but  often  stout,  and 
as  the  papers  have  it,  "prominent  members  of 
society" — measured  from  the  second  vest  button 
to  the  small  of  the  back !  But  they  were  always 
gray,  and  sometimes  venerable.  He  used  to  won 
der  if  they  were  born  old,  and  the  idea  of  a  young 
deacon  was  impossible.  The  locomotive  has  hur 
ried  up  these  useful  servants  of  the  church,  so 
that  they  are  sometimes  picked  before  they  are 
quite  ripe,  and  sent  forward  by  an  early  train. 


62  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

Take  a  sleek,  dark  -  haired,  flare  -  vested,  civet- 
scented,  slim  -  waisted  man  in  a  cut-away,  and 
switching  his  patent -leathers  with  a  ratan,  and 
you  have  a  deacon  that  would  puzzle  Wilderness 
John,  as  Agassiz  never  was  puzzled  by  a  new 
specimen  of  natural  history.  But  he  may  be  a 
capital  deacon  for  all  that,  only  in  disguise. 

The  more  you  travel,  the  less  you  carry.  The 
novice  begins  with  two  trunks,  a  valise,  a  hat- 
box  and  an  umbrella.  He  jingles  with  checks. 
He  haunts  the  baggage-car  like  a  "perturbed 
spirit."  He  ends  with  a  small  knapsack,  an  over 
coat  and  a  linen  duster.  Bosom,  collar,  wrist 
bands,  he  does  himself  up  in  paper  like  a  curl. 
He  is  as  clean  round  the  edges  as  the  margins 
of  a  new  book. 

We  throw  away  a  great  deal  of  baggage  on 
the  life  journey  that  we  cannot  well  spare ;  a 
young  heart,  bright  recollections  of  childhood, 
friends  of  the  years  that  are  gone.  And  so  we 
"fly  light,"  but  we  do  not  fly  well. 

Let  us  approach  the  baggage-man  with  tender 
ness.  Let  us  tender  him  a  quarter,  if  he  in  turn 
will  give  quarter  to  our  trunk.  He  is  square- 
built  and  broad-shouldered.  His  vigorous  exer 
cise  in  throwing  things  has  developed  his  mus 
cles  till  he  projects  like  a  catapult.  It  is  pleas 
ant  to  watch  his  playful  ways,  provided  you  carry 
your  baggage  in  your  hat.  He  waltzes  out  a 
great  trunk  on  its  corners  till  they  are  as  dog- 


HABITS  OF  ENGINES  AND   TRAIN  MEN.  63 

eared  as  a  school  reader.  He  keeps  carpet-bags 
in  the  air  like  a  juggler.  While  one  is  going 
up  another  is  coming  down.  Hinges  of  trunks 
give  way.  There  is  a  smell  of  camphor  and 


THE  BAGGAGE  SMASHER. 


paregoric,  and  a  jingle  of  glass,  and  a  display 
of  woman's  apparel.  They  are  all  bundled  up 
like  an  armful  of  fodder,  and  thrust  back  into 
the  offending  trunk,  and  a  big  word  is  tumbled 
HI  after  them  —  to  keep  things  down. 

Meanwhile,  the  tremendous  voice  of  the  check- 


64  THE  WORLD  ON  WHEELS. 

master  tolls  like  a  bell,  "4689  Cleveland!  271 
Rochester !  "  and  the  baggage  -  car  is  as  lively 
with  all  sorts  of  bagga.ge  as  corn  in  a  corn- 
popper.  Things  that  are  marked,  "  this  side  up 
with  care ! "  come  down  bottom-side  up,  like  cap 
tured  mud-turtles.  They  go  end  over  end,  like 
acrobats.  A  rope  is  stretched  around  the  place  of 
destruction,  to  keep  the  crowd  that  is  watching 
the  entertainment  from  being  killed.  This  has 
always  seemed  to  me  a  very  touching  instance 
of  the  loving  kindness  of  railway  officials,  and 
yet  it  is  possible  a  spare  end  of  that  same  rope 
might  be  used  in  a  pleasant  way  to  diversify 
the  performances  about  that  baggage-car.  They 
have  —  I  hope  he  is  yet  alive  —  a  model  bag 
gage-man  on  the  Chicago,  Burlington  &  Quincy 
Railroad.  He  is  very  feeble.  Once  he  was  the 
champion  ground-tumbler  of  the  West,  but  now 
he  has  the  galloping  consumption.  He  is  a  mel 
ancholy  spectacle,  but  he  is  a  model  of  his  kind. 
The  baggage  moves  quietly  about  him,  and  yet 
the  transfer  is  made  rapidly  and  on  time.  There 
is  only  one  thing  that  prevents  his  promotion  — 
his  being  made  inspector  of  baggage-men  through 
out  the  country,  with  a  commission  to  travel 
and  visit  them  all.  It  is  this :  quick  consump 
tion  is  not  contagious.  Not  one  of  his  subor 
dinates  could  possibly  catch  it. 

Sometimes   a   train   in   an   accountable    way  has 


HABITS  OF  ENGINES  AND  TRAIN  MEN.  65 

a  characteristic.  Were  you  ever  passenger  on 
the  Inarticulate  Train  ?  The  conductor  enters 
the  car,  closes  the  door  with  a  confused  bang, 
and,  his  little  tongs  swinging  on  a  finger  in  an 
airy  way,  he  shouts  "  Tix ! "  The  train-boy 
coasts  along  behind  him,  and  he  says,  "Ap ! 
Pape  !  Norangz  ! "  The  brakeman  pops  his  head 
in  at  the  door,  shows  you  the  top  of  his  cap, 
and  roars  down  into  his  manly  bosom,  "  Tledr ! " 
just  as  you  are  pulling  into  that  misplaced  Cas- 
tilian  city,  in  the  region  where,  according  to  the 
old  song, 

"  Potatoes  they  grow  small  in  Maumee  ! " 

The  very  wheels  beneath  you  trundle  along 
in  an  indistinct  fashion,  and  the  engine  has  a 
wheeze  instead  of  a  whistle.  It  is  as  if  the 
railway  dictionary  had  been  run  over  by  the  cars 
a  number  of  times,  and  there  was  nothing  left 
for  the  owners  but  to  serve  out  the  fragments 
to  passengers.  The  brakeman  of  a  train  holds, 
all  things  considered,  the  post  of  honor,  because 
the  post  of  danger.  The  locomotive  talks  to 
him  all  day,  and,  as  a  rule,  that  is  about  the 
only  individual  with  whom  he  holds  much  con 
versation.  It  says  "  Hold  her!"  and  round  goes 
the  wheel.  "  Danger ! "  and  he  springs  to  it  with 
a  will.  "Ease  her!"1  and  off  comes  the  brake 
with  a  clank.  "  Now  I  'm  going  to  start ! " 


66  THE  WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

"Now  I'm  going  to  back!"  "Off  the  track! 
Off  the  track!"  "Coming  to  bridge!"  "I  see 
the  town!"  "Open  the  s-w-i-t-c-h ! "  and, 
through  all,  the  brakeman  stands  by  like  a  helms 
man  in  a  storm.  On  lightning  trains  he  is  not 
given  to  much  humor,  but  the  article  is  in  him. 
As  you  cross  Iowa  by  the  Chicago  and  North 
western  Railway,  and  approach  the  great  Divide, 
the  stations  run  :  East  Side  —  Tip-Top  —  West 
Side.  The  route  through  that  region  is  a  little 
monotonous.  It  is  the  hammer,  hammer,  hammer 
of  the  wheels  in  anvil  cadence  hour  after  hour. 
Between  cat-naps,  small  enough  to  be  kittens,  you 
see  the  great  swells  of  prairie,  and  then  more 
prairie.  But  there  is  a  brakeman  on  one  of  the 
trains  that  can  enliven  you  a  little,  and  always 
brings  up  a  smile  like  a  glimmer  of  sunshine.  He 
says  "East  Side!"  or  "West  Side!"  stupidly 
enough,  but  when  the  train  is  just  halting  at  the 
pinnacle,  he  throws  a  hearty  elation  and  a  double 
circumflex  into  his  tone,  much  as  if  you  had 
asked  him  what  sort  of  time  he  had  at  the  great 
Railroad  Ball,  and  he  cries  "  TIP- TOP  ! "  That 
inflection  of  his  always  tells. 

There  is  a  poor  joke,  past  the  grace  of  salt 
petre,  that  an  economical  conductor  will  save  a 
few  hundred  dollars  a  year  more  than  his  sal 
ary;  and  there  is  an  impression  abroad  in  many 
minds  that  conductors  take  to  stealing  as  Dog- 


HABITS  OF  ENGINES  AND   TRAIN  MEN.  67 

"berry  got  his  reading  and  writing  —  naturally. 
When  it  comes  to  that,  a  couple  of  railway 
directors  and  a  president  or  two  have  been 
known  to  steal  more  money  than  all  the  con 
ductors  in  the  United  States  together  ever  mis 
appropriated.  A  conductor,  if  dishonest,  is  not 
a  rogue  because  he  is  a  conductor,  or  a  con 
ductor  because  he  is  a  rogue.  As  a  class,  con 
ductors  are  as  honorable  as  lawyers,  physicians, 
bankers,  while  they  run  far  greater  risks,  and 
have  far  more  to  try  their  patience,  than  the 
money-changers  and  professional  gentlemen  just 
named.  Go  from  Providence  to  the  Golden  Gate, 
and,  as  a  rule,  it  is  the  conductors  who  trea-t 
you  with  the  most  courtesy  and  kindness,  step 
aside  from  the  line  of  their  official  duty  to  gratify 
your  reasonable  wishes  and  render  you  comfort 
able.  And  not  for  you  only,  but  for  the  hun 
dreds  of  thousands  of  strangers  who  ride  upon 
their  trains. 

To  them,  generations  of  men  and  women  only 
live  from  eighteen  to  twenty-four  hours.  They 
pass  on,  and  are  seen  no  more.  But  during 
those  hours  the  conductor  has  human  nature 
under  a  microscope.  He  discovers  things  about 
people  that  they  themselves  had  only  guessed 
at.  He  discerns  traits  that  their  neighbors  never 
detected.  The  average  conductor  is  a  shrewd 
man.  He  reads  faces  like  a  book,  and  remem 
bers  them  always. 


68  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 


CHAPTER   IX. 


IN    THE    SADDLE. 

THE  engineer  and  the  brakeman  are  as  often 
and  as  truly  heroes  as  the  average  veteran  army 
colonel  under  fire  for  the  tenth  time.  True  cour 
age,  thoughtful  kindness,  presence  of  mind,  and  a 
quiet  bearing,  form  a  four-stranded  quality  that  is 
never  quite  perfect  if  unraveled.  How  have  they 
all  been  illustrated !  Take  the  hero  of  New- 
Hamburg,  on  the  Hudson  River  Road,  who  looked 
death  in  the  face,  and  never  left  the  saddle. 
Take  the  dying  engineer  immortalized  by  the  poet 
of  Amesbury,  who  used  the  last  of  his  ebbing 
breath  to  make  sure  the  coming  train  was  sig 
nalled.  Take  incidents  chinked  into  the  papers 
every  day  in  little  type,  that,  pertaining  to  men 
without  shoulder-straps  or  title,  ars  read  with  a 
passing  glance,  and  then  forgotten. 

The  locomotive  engineer  is  as  quiet  as  a  Qua 
ker  meeting.  One  driver  of  a  four-horse  coach 
will  make  more  noise  than  a  dozen  of  him. 
There  he  is  with  his  hand  upon  the  iron  lever, 


IN  THE  SADDLE.  69 

and  looks  forth  from  his  little  window.  If  he 
wants  to  say  something  confidentially  to  a  street 
crossing,  there  is  the  bell-tongue.  If  he  wishes  to 
throw  a  word  or  two  back  to  the  brakeman,  or 
make  a  short  speech  to  a  distant  depot,  there  is 
the  whistle.  He  pats  his  engine,  and  calls  it 
"  she."  Its  name  is  Whirling  Cloud  or  Rolling 
Thunder  or  Vampire  or  Vanderbilt,  but  it  is 
"  she"  all  the  time.  He  knows  her  ways,  and  she 
understands  his.  He  loves  to  see  her  brazen 
trappings  shine ;  to  watch  the  play  of  her  polished 
arms ;  to  let  her  out  011  a  straight  shoot ;  to  make 
time. 

Put  your  foot  in  the  stirrup  and  swing  yourself 
aboard.  The  engineer's  little  cabin  is  a  regular 
houdah  for  an  elephant.  It  is  a  princely  way 
of  making  a  royal  progress.  The  engineer  bids 
you  take  that  cushioned  seat  by  the  right-hand 
window.  You  hear  the  gurgle  of  the  engine's 
feverish  pulse,  and  the  hiss  of  a  whole  community 
of  tea-kettles.  There  is  his  steam-clock  with  its 
finger  on  the  figure.  There  is  his  time  -  clock. 
One  says,  sixty  pounds.  The  other,  forty  miles  an 
hour.  A  little  bell  on  the  wall  before  him 
strikes.  That  was  the  conductor.  He  said  "  Pull 
out,"  and  he  pulls.  The  brazen  bell,  like  a  gob 
let  wrong  side  up,  spills  out  a  great  clangor. 
The  whistle  gives  two  sharp,  quick  notes.  The 
driver  swings  back  the  lever.  The  engine's  slen- 


70  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

der  arms  begin  to  feel  slowly  in  her  cylindrical 
pockets  for  something  they  never  find,  and  never 
tire  of  feeling  for.  Great  unwashed  fleeces  are 
counted  slowly  out  from  the  smoke-stack.  The 
furnace  doors  open  and  shut  faster  and  faster. 
The  faces  of  the  clock  dials  shine  in  the  bursts 
of  light  like  newly-washed  school-children's  that 
have  been  polished  off  with  a  crash  towel.  The 
lever  is  swung  a  little  farther  down.  The  search 
for  things  gets  lively.  Fleeces  are  getting  plen- 
tier.  The  coal  goes  into  the  furnace  and  out 
at  the  chimney  like  the  beat  of  a  great  black 
artery.  There  is  a  brisk  breeze  that  makes  your 
hair  stream  like  a  comet's. 

The  locomotive  is  alive  with  reserved  power. 
It  has  a  sentient  tremor  as  it  hugs  the  track, 
and  hurls  itself  along  sixty  feet  for  every  tick 
of  the  clock  —  as  if  you  should  walk  twenty 
paces  while  your  heart  beats  once  !  First  you 
get  the  idea,  arid  next  the  exhilaration,  of  power 
in  motion.  It  is  better  than  "  the  Sillery  soft 
and  creamy,"  of  Longfellow.  It  is  finer  than 
sparkling  Catawba.  It  has  the  touch  of  wings 
in  it.  You  watch  the  track,  and  you  learn  some 
thing.  You  had  always  supposed  the  iron  bars 
were  laid  in  two  parallel  lines.  But  you  see ! 
It  is  a  long  slender  V,  tapering  to  a  point  in 
the  distance !  But  the  engine  pries  them  apart 
as  it  plunges  on,  and  makes  a  track  of  them. 


IN  THE  SADDLE.  71 

The  locomotive  quickens  your  pulse,  but  it  does 
more.  It  quickens  vegetation,  and  makes  things 
light  and  frisky.  See  that  little  bush  squat  to 
the  ground,  like  a  hare  in  her  form.  It  grows 
before  your  eyes.  It  is  a  big  bush,  a  little  tree, 
a  full-grown  maple,  that  gave  down  the  sap  for 
the  sugar-camp  kettle  in  your  grandfather's  time. 
There  are  a  couple  of  portly  hay-stacks,  like  two 
Dutch  burghers  of  the  Knickerbocker  days,  grow 
ing  fatter  every  minute,  and  waddling  out  of  the 
way  to  let  the  train  go  by. 

Two  miles  ago,  a  strolling  farm-house  stood  in 
the  middle  of  the  road,  staring  stupidly  down 
the  track.  It  has  just  got  over  the  fence  into 
the  lot,  behind  some  shrubs  and  flowers  and 
pleasant  trees,  and  looks,  as  you  fly  by,  as  if 
it  had  never  moved  at  all.  Apparently,  really, 
always,  there  is  magic  in  the  Locomotive. 

There  is  a  picture  of  the  first  railroad  train  in 
the  State  of  New  York.  It  was  taken  by  a 
man  with  no  hands.  Their  proverbial  cunning 
had  slipped  down  into  his  toes.  The  faces  of 
the  passengers  are  portraits.  One  of  them  is  the 
venerable  THURLOW  WEED,  of  New  York.  The 
car  is  strictly  a  coach.  They  call  a  sixty-soul 
car  a  coach  now.  It  is  a  vicious  misuse,  for  a 
railway-car  is  as  much  like  a  coach  as  a  rope- 
walk  is  like  a  German  flute.  The  vehicle  is 
bodied  like  a  coach,  backed  like  a  coach,  doored 


72  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

like  a  coach,  and  has  a  little  railing  around  the 
roof  to  keep  the  baggage  from  going  overboard. 
And  there  is  baggage.  It  is  not  a  carpet-bag, 
nor  a  valise,  nor  a  Saratoga,  but  a  leather  port 
manteau,  an  Old  Wurld  cloak-carrier.  There  may 
be  a  pair  of  flapped  saddle-bags  under  somebody's 
feet  inside.  Modern  satchels  were  not. 

There  are  three  seats,  and  Mr.  Weed  sits  upon 
the  middle  one.  Before  this  coach  is  the  engine. 
The  cylinder  is  trained  like  a  Washington  gun, 
at  an  angle  of  about  thirty -three  and  a  third 
degrees,  and  seems  to  have  gotten  the  range 
pretty  accurately  of  the  engineer^  head.  The 
engineer  has  no  house,  no  seat,  but  stands  upon 
a  platform  much  like  a  man  about  to  be  hanged. 
A  wine-cask,  small  at  both  ends  and  big  in  the 
middle,  is  perched  on  end  within  easy  reach* 
filled  with  oven  -  wood ;  to  -  wit,  wood  split  axe- 
helve  size,  such  as  our  fathers  were  wont  to 
manufacture  for  heating  the  egg-shaped  brick 
oven  on  baking  days.  With  this  fuel  he  pro 
vokes  the  patient  water  to  boiling  point.  No 
bell,  no  whistle,  no  means  of  communicating  with 
him,  except  the  conductor  catches  him  by  the 
coat-skirt. 

The  conductor  is  a  "captain."  He  has  more 
dignity  than  a  modern  railway  superintendent. 
They  go  ten  miles  an  hour,  and  they  do  well. 
Being  in  the  picture  business,  I  may  as  well 


IN  THE  SADDLE.  73 

say  that  the  Harpers  once  presented  a  picture 
of  an  old-time  iron  tea-kettle,  with  a  crooked 
spout  and  a  jingling  lid.  I  saw  it  jingle,  and 
that's  direct  testimony.  From  the  vexed  spout 
rolled  little  volumes  of  steam.  Below  it  was 
the  portrait  of  a  great  locomotive,  all  ready  to 
run.  The  twain  were  relatives,  for  the  tea-kettle 
was  the  shriveled,  far  away,  nasal  grandfather 
of  the  engine,  and  beneath  it  were  the  words, 
"!N  THE  BEGINNING."  That  told  the  story,  as 
far  as  the  story  had  gone.  These  bits  of  fine  art 
are  suggestive.  They  mean  that  we  have  made 
wonderful  progress  in  the  art  of  being  common 
carriers,  and  that  one-half  the  world  must  keep 
very  busy  in  thinking  things  and  doing  things 
worth  transporting  by  the  other  half.  It  is  an 
axiom  that  no  city  can  achieve  permanent  pros 
perity  simply  by  an  immense  carrying  trade. 
How  about  the  world? 


74  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 


CHAPTER  X. 


RACING     AND     PLOWING. 

Two  rates  of  motion  are  racing  and  plowing, 
but,  as  you  shall  see,  wonderfully  alike.  An 
Agricultural  Fair  has  come  to  mean  a  Race- 
Track  with  a  variety  of  vegetables  ranged  around 
on  the  outside,  and  a  great  crowd  between  the 
ring  of  track  and  the  ring  of  vegetables.  There 
appears  to  be  much  doubt  as  to  the  propriety 
of  horse-races,  but  I  have  never  seen  a  consci 
entious  man  who  happened  by  chance  to  witness 
a  race,  that  did  not  make  up  his  mind  in  a 
minute  which  horse  he  wanted  to  be  the  win 
ner.  He  did  not  believe  in  that  kind  of  four- 
footed  gambling,  but  then .  You  tell  him 

the  gray  will  be  whipped — gray  is  his  color — 
and  he  wants  to  back  up  his  opinion  with  some 
thing — let  you  know  what  that  judgment  is 
worth  to  him ;  and  were  it  not  for  some  re 
straining  grace,  he  would  produce  his  pocketbook 
and  flourish  the  estimated  value  of  his  opinion 
full  in  your  face. 


RA  CING  A  ND  PL  0  WING.  7  5 

That 's  the  way  betting  comes.  It  is  not  a 
mere  invention,  like  a  Yankee  nutmeg.  It  is 
human  nature.  One  man  argues,  another  sneers, 
a  third  gets  angry,  a  fourth  fights,  and  a  fifth 
bets.  Five  ways  of  doing  the  same  thing.  The 
writer  knew  a  young  man — not  so  young  as  he 
was — who  happened  to  be  in  New  York  when 
the  great  running-race  between  Fashion  and  Pey- 
tona  occurred  on  the  Union  Course,  Long  Island. 
That  individual,  boy  and  man,  never  saw  but 
that  one  race,  never  played  a  game  of  cards,  or 
bet  a  penny  upon  anything ;  but  no  sooner  were 
the  horses  brought  up  to  the  Grand  Stand  than, 
he  had  his  favorite,  and  he  could  not  have  told 
why,  to  save  his  life.  He  would  have  endowed 
that  horse's  prospect  of  winning  with  all  his 
earthly  possessions,  which  were  twenty-seven  dol 
lars  and  a  half,  if  he  could  have  found  a  taker 
to  accept  of  such  a  trifle.  How  he  watched 
every  jump  the  creature  made !  How  he  admired 
her  as  she  flew  close  to  the  ground  from  land 
ing-place  to  landing-place  again,  and  clapped  his 
hands  and  cheered  like  a  maniac !  He  was  a 
full-grown  sporting-man  in  a  minute,  though  he 
did  not  know  a  horse's  hock  from  the  Rhenish 
wine  of  that  name. 

Now  to  put  the  race  upon  wheels  instead  of 
heels :  the  tracks  of  those  two  great  lines  of 
travel,  the  Michigan  Southern  and  the  Pittsburg 


76  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

&  Fort  Wayne,  run  side  by  side  for  several 
miles  after  they  leave  Chicago  —  sometimes  so 
near  that  you  can  toss  an  apple  from  one  train 
to  the  other.  When  the  workmen  laid  the  tracks 
they  thought  about  the  races,  for  they  knew  that 
races  must  come  from  such  a  neighborhood  of 
railways,  and  each  gang  shouted  across  to  the 
other,  and  bet  on  its  own  road. 

They  did  come.  You  are  on  the  Michigan 
Southern.  The  train  has  worked  slowly  out  of 
the  city  on  to  the  open  prairie.  The  Pittsburg 
train  has  done  the  same  thing.  There  at  your 
right,  and  half  a  mile  away,  you  can  see  the 
puffs  of  white  steam.  The  trembling  clangor  of 
the  bell  has  ceased.  The  shackly-jointed  gait  of 
the  train  ceases.  It  tightens  up,  and  runs  with 
a  humming  sound.  The  landscape  slips  out  from 
under  your  feet  like  a  skipping-rope.  Pittsburg 
is  coming.  She  laps  the  last  car  of  your  train. 
Now  is  your  time  to  run  alongside,  and  see  how 
an  engine  acts  when  the  throttle-valve  is  wide 
open.  Watch  the  flash  of  that  steel  arm  as  it 
brings  the  wheels  about.  She  is  doing  her  best. 
The  two  engines  are  neck  and  neck.  They 
scream  at  each  other  like  Camanches.  The  bells 
clang.  The  trains  are  running  forty-five  miles 
an  hour.  It  is  a  small  inspiration. 

Now  for  the  passengers.  The  windows  are 
open.  Heads  out,  handkerchiefs  waving.  Every- 


RACING  AND  PLOWING.  77 

body  alive.  Everybody  anxious.  Nobody  afraid. 
Rivalry  has  run  away  from  fear.  Our  engineer 
puts  on  a  little  more  speed.  The  train  draws 
slowly  out  from  the  even  race,  like  the  tube  of 
a  telescope.  It  is  the  poetry  of  motion  —  power 
spurning  the  ground  without  leaving  it.  Good- 
by,  palaces  !  good-by,  coaches !  good-by,  baggage- 
cars  !  good-by,  engine !  good-by,  Pittsburg !  We; 
have  shown  that  train  a  clean  pair  of  heels., 
There  is  nothing  left  of  it  but  black  and  white; 
plumes  of  steam  and  smoke.  Look  around  you. 
The  car  is  all  smiles  and  congratulations. 
44  Grave  and  gay,"  they  are  as  lively  as  a  nest 
of  winning  gamblers. 

This  racing  is  all  wrong.  Superintendents  have 
forbidden  it,  travelers  have  denounced  it,  but 
they  want  to  see  what  can  be  gotten  out  of 
"Achilles"  or  "Whirling  Thunder,"  as  much  as 
anybody.  And  they  do  not  want  to  be  beat! 
Make  them  engineers,  and  every  man  of  them 
would  pull  out  and  put  things  through  their 
best  paces.  We  believe  in  horses,  we  believe  in 
locomotives,  but  we  lack  faith  in  balloons.  They 
are  large  toys  for  big  children.  "  The  earth 
hath  bubbles  as  the  water  has,  and  these  are 
of  them." 

Old  Nantucket  salts  used  to  spin  their  fireside 
yarns  about  doubling  the  Cape.  There  was  such 
a  mingling  of  peril  and  excitement;  the  foamy 


78  THE   WORLD    ON  WHEELS. 

seas  boarding  the  ship  by  the  bows ;  the  fly 
ing  rack ;  the  visible  storm ;  the  orders  lost  in 
the  thunder  of  the  waves,  or  swept  away  by 
the  wind ;  it  was  such  man's  work  to  get  about 
that  headland  in  the  Pacific  seas,  that  no  won 
der  boys  leaped  from  bedroom  windows  in  the 
night  and  ran  away  to  try  it.  I  think  there  is 
one  railway  experience  you  may  have,  that  is 
much  like  going  around  the  Horn. 

Did  you  ever  ride  on  a  snow-plow?  Not  the 
pet  and  pony  of  a  thing  that  is  attached  to  the 
front  of  an  engine,  sometimes,  like  a  pilot,  but 
a  great  two-storied  monster  of  strong  timbers, 
that  runs  upon  wheels  of  its  own,  and  that  boys 
run  after  and  stare  at,  as  they  would  after,  and 
at,  an  elephant.  You  are  snow-bound  at  Buff 
alo.  The  Lake  Shore  Line  is  piled  with  drifts 
like  a  surf.  Two  passenger  trains  have  been 
half-buried  for  twelve  hours  somewhere  in  snowy 
Chautauqua.  The  storm  howls  like  a  congrega 
tion  of  Arctic  bears.  But  the  Superintendent  at 
Buffalo  is  determined  to  release  his  castaways 
and  clear  the  road  to  Erie.  He  permits  you  to 
be  a  passenger  on  the  great  snow-plow,  and  there 
it  is,  all  ready  to  drive.  Harnessed  behind  it  is 
a  tandem  team  of  three  engines.  It  does  not 
occur  to  you  that  you  are  going  to  ride  upon 
a  steam-drill,  and  so  you  get  aboard. 

It   is  a  spacious  and   timbered   room,   with   one 


RA  CING  A  ND  PL  0  WING,  7  9 

large  bull's-eye  window  —  an  overgrown  lens. 
The  thing  is  a  sort  of  Cyclops.  There  are  ropes 
and  chains  and  a  windlass.  There  is  a  bell  by 
which  the  engineer  of  the  first  engine  can  signal* 
the  plowman,  and  a  cord  whereby  the  plowman 
can  talk  back.  There  are  two  sweeps  or  arms, 
worked  by  machinery  on  the  sides.  You  ask 
their  use,  and  the  Superintendent  replies,  "  when, 
in  a  violent  shock,  there  is  danger  of  the  mon 
ster's  upsetting,  an  arm  is  put  out  on  one  side 
or  the  other,  to  keep  the  thing  from  turning  a 
complete  somerset."  You  get  one  idea,  and  an 
inkling  of  another.  So  you  take  out  your  Acci 
dent  Policy  for  three  thousand  dollars,  and  ex 
amine  it.  It  never  mentions  battles  nor  duels 
nor  snow-plows.  It  names  "public  conveyances." 
Is  a  snow-plow  a  public  conveyance  ?  You  are 
inclined  to  think  it  is  neither  that,  nor  any 
other  kind  that  you  should  trust  yourself  to, 
but  it  is  too  late  for  consideration. 

You  roll  out  of  Buffalo  in  the  teeth  of  the  wind, 
and  the  world  is  turned  to  snow.  All  goes  mer 
rily.  The  machine  strikes  little  drifts,  and  they 
scurry  away  in  a  cloud.  The  three  engines 
breathe  easily,  but  by -and -by  the  earth  seems 
broken  into  great  billows  of  dazzling  white.  The 
sun  comes  out  of  a  cloud,  and  touches  it  up 
till  it  outsilvers  Potosi.  Houses  lie  in  the  trough 
of  the  sea  everywhere,  and  it  requires  little 


80  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

imagination  to  think  they  are  pitching  and  toss 
ing  before  your  eyes.  The  engines'  respiration 
is  a  little  quickened.  At  last  there  is  no  more 
road  than  there  is  in  the  Atlantic.  A  great 
breaker  rises  right  in  the  way.  The  monsterr 
with  you  in  it,  works  its  way  up  and  feels  of 
it.  It  is  packed  like  a  ledge  of  marble.  Three 
whistles !  The  machine  backs  away  and  keeps 
backing,  as  a  gymnast  runs  astern  to  get  sea- 
room  and  momentum  for  a  big  jump  ;  as  a  giant 
swings  aloft  a  heavy  sledge  that  it  may  come 
down  with  a  heavy  blow.  One  whistle !  You 
have  come  to  a  halt.  Three  pairs  of  whistles 
one  after  another,  and  then,  putting  on  all  steam, 
you  make  for  the  drift.  The  Superintendent 
locks  the  door,  you  do  not  quite  understand  why. 
and  in  a  second  the  battle  begins.  The  machine 
rocks  and  creaks  in  all  its  joints.  There  comes 
a  tremendous  shock.  The  cabin  is  as  dark 
as  midnight.  The  clouds  of  flying  snow  put 
out  the  day.  The  labored  breathing  of  the  lo 
comotives  behind  you,  the  clouds  of  smoke  and 
steam  that  wrap  you  as  in  a  mantle,  the  noon 
day  eclipse  of  snow,  the  surging  of  the  ship, 
the  rattling  of  chains,  the  creak  of  timbers 
as  if  the  craft  were  aground,  and  the  sea  get 
ting  out  of  its  bed  to  whelm  you  altogether,  the 
doubt  as  to  what  will  come  next  —  all  combine 
to  make  a  scene  of  strange  excitement  for  a 


RA  CING  A  ND  PL  0  WING.  8 1 

land-lubber.  You  have  made  some  impression 
upon  the  breaker,  and  again  the  machine  backs  for 
a  fair  start,  and  then  altogether  another  plunge 
and  shock  and  heavy  twilight.  And  so,  from 
deep  cut  to  deep  cut,  as  if  the  season  had 
packed  all  his  winter  clothes  upon  the  track, 
until  the  stalled  trains  are  reached  and  passed, 
and  then  with  alternate  storm  and  calm  and  halt 
and  shock,  till  the  way  is  cleared  to  Erie. 

It  is  Sunday  afternoon,  and  Erie  — "  Mad  An 
thony  Wayne's"  old  head-quarters  —  has  donned 
its  Sunday  clothes,  and  turned  out  by  hundreds 
to  see  the  great  plow  come  in  —  its  first  voyage 
over  the  line.  The  locomotives  set  up  a  crazy 
scream,  and  you  draw  slowly  into  the  depot. 
The  door  opened  at  last,  you  clamber  down,  and 
gaze  up  at  the  uneasy  house  in  which  you  have 
been  living.  It  looks  as  if  an  avalanche  had 
tumbled  down  upon  it  —  white  as  an  Alpine 
shoulder.  Your  first  thought  is,  gratitude  that 
you  have  made  a  landing  alive.  Your  second,  a 
resolution  that  if  again  you  ride  a  hammer,  it 
will  not  be  when  three  engines  have  hold  of  the 
handle ! 


82  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


SNOW-BOUND, 

THE  law  of  association  is  a  queer  piece  of 
legislation.  There  is  the  bit  of  road  that  used 
to  extend  from  Toledo,  where  it  connected  with 
the  steamer,  stage  and  canal  packet,  to  Adrian, 
Michigan,  where  stages  took  up  the  broken  thread 
and  jolted  you  on  towards  sunset.  That  road 
always  suggests  love-apples  to  the  writer !  Love- 
apples  in  those  days,  tomatoes  in  these.  It  was 
his  first  ride  upon  a  railroad;  and,  reaching 
Adrian,  he  for  the  first  time  saw  and  tasted  the 
beautiful  fruit  that,  according  to  the  newspapers, 
contains  calomel  and  cancers.  Was  it  a  Persian 
pig,  or  some  other,  that  offered  a  crown  jewel 
for  a  new  dish?  Well,  here  was  a  new  sensa 
tion,  as  strange  as  if  the  fruit  that  caused  it 
had  grown  in  Ceylon  of  "the  spicy  breezes." 
The  hands  that  served  them  up  are  dust ;  the 
bit  of  road  is  lost  in  the  great  Lake  Shore  Line; 
the  hamlet  Adrian,  with  its  log-cabin  outposts, 
has  grown  a  city  with  the  flare  and  fashion  of 


SNQ  W-BO  UND.  83 

the  latter  day;  but  in  the  perishable  tomato 
the  memory  of  that  first  ride,  that  broad,  burn 
ing  August  day,  those  pleasant  friends,  is  assured 
forever. 

There  is  the  Road  to  Labrador,  known  as  the 
Rome,  Water  town  &  Ogdensburg,  that  deludes 
you  in  winter  time  from  modern  Rome,  in  the 
State  of  New  York*  and  takes  you  into  a  world 
snowed  clean  of  every  fence  and  vestige  of  civ 
ilization,  except  houses  in  white  turbans  set  waist- 
deep  in  the  drifts.  By-and-by  the  engine,  with 
strange  woodchuck  proclivities,  falls  to  burrowing 
in  a  white  bank,  and  there  you  wait  like  a 
precious  metal  to  be  digged  out.  The  wind 
gives  Alaska  howls  around  the  shivering  car. 
The  stoves  comfort  themselves  with  a  quiet 
smoke.  The  passengers  scratch  eyelet-holes  in 
the  frosted  panes,  and  see  hospitable  farmhouses 
within  shouting  range,  but  as  inaccessible  as  if 
they  had  been  telescopic  objects  recently  discov 
ered  in  the  moon.  The  lazy  wood  is  frying 
with  the  comforting  sound  of  a  speedy  meal. 
The  brakemen  stalk  to  and  fro,  and  slam  the 
doors,  and  are  as  talkative  as  sphinxes.  The 
women  bend  around  the  departed  fire  like  wil 
lows  around  a  grave. 

You  wish  you  had  Dr.  Kane's  "Arctic  Explo 
rations."  A  perusal  of  his  coldest  chapter  might 
warm  you  a  little.  You  get  out  into  the  snow, 


84  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

and  flounder  along  to  the  engine.  There  it  is, 
with  its  nose  in  the  drift  like  a  setter,  and 
sings  as  feebly  as  a  tea-kettle.  The  water  drips 
through  the  joints  of  its  harness,  and  hangs  in 
icicles.  Did  you  ever  see  an  icicle  grow?  Now 
is  your  time.  A  drop  of  water  runs  down 
to  the  tip  of  the  needle,  halts  and  freezes. 
Then  another,  and  another.  Some  get  a  little 
way,  and  give  out.  So  the  icicle  grows  bigger. 
Others  manage  to  reach  the  point.  So  the  icicle 
grows  longer.  It  is  about  the  only  vegetable 
that  grows  downward,  except  Spanish  moss. 
The  engineer  takes  his  dinner  out  of  a  little  tin 
pail,  and  eats  it  before  your  eyes.  The  fireman 
keeps  up  the  fire,  and  warms  his  feet  before 
your  toes.  You  ask  the  driver  what  is  going 
to  be  done.  He  suspends  the  polishing  of  a 
chicken  bone  for  a  second,  and  says,  "Waitin' 
for  time!"  Meanwhile  the  wind  has  been  busy. 
It  has  chucked  your  hat  into  the  bank,  and 
filled  it  with  snow,  Scripture  measure. 

You  go  to  the  rear  of  the  train  and  look 
back.  You  cannot  see  whence  you  came,  nor 
how  you  ever  did  come,  nor  where  you  will  ever 
get  away.  A  brakeman  starts  out  with  a  flag, 
and  plods  along  the  track.  He  need  n't.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  world  that  can  come,  and  no 
more  danger  of  colliding  with  a  train  than  there 
is  with  the  Fourth  of  July.  He  has  started  for 


SNOW-BOUND.  85 

the  last  station,  but  he  is  in  sight  as  long  as  you 
can  see  him,  and  you  could  see  him  longer  only 
it  is  getting  dark.  By-and-by  he  returns,  riding 
on  an  engine  that  catches  us  by  the  heels  and 
drags  us  back  to  the  station,  where  the  hours 
put  a  great  deal  of  lead  in  their  shoes,  and  stalk 
slowly  through  the  night.  Two  or  three  boys 
come  in.  They  are  all  of  a  bigness,  like  young 
Esquimaux.  They  are  Esquimaux.  They  stand 
between  you  and  the  stove,  and  stare  at  you. 
Like  the  moon,  only  one  side  of  them  is  ever 
visible,  and  that  is  the  fore,  side.  They  are  glad 
there  is  a  storm,  glad  the  train  is  stopped.  It 's 
fun.  One  of  them  has  a  basket  of  apples.  You 
buy  some.  You  might  as  well  try  to  eat  a  stal 
actite.  They  were  frozen  coming  to  the  depot, 
or  before  they  started,  or  as  soon  as  they  ripened, 
and  you  never  knew  when.  Those  boys  laugh 
at  your  discomfiture,  and  you  hope  there  are 
white  bears  in  Labrador,  and  that  one  of  them 
is  in  a  drift  outside  with  a  good  appetite,  and 
that  he  will  catch  that  apple-vender  and  empty 
the  basket  and  eat  the  boy !  By-and-by  the  first 
engine  gives  a  frosty  whistle  and  the  second 
engine  gives  another,  and  the  conductor  lets  his 
head  in  at  the  door  and  shouts  "  All  aboard ! " 
as  if  he  had  been  hindered  all  this  while  wait 
ing  for  you  to  buy  apples  and  wish  for  bears; 
and  the  passengers  clamber  into  the  car  and 
huddle  up,  and  away  they  go. 


86  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

There  is  a  lecturer  on  board,  an  itinerant 
vender  of  literary  wares.  He  is  as  quiet  as  a 
statue,  the  coolest  man  in  the  party,  and  they 
are  all  half-frozen.  At  Pulaski,  or  Mexico,  01 
some  other  foreign  or  ancient  town  upon  that 
road,  an  audience  awaits  him.  The  Glee  Club 
has  sung  itself  out.  The  village  boys  have  burned 
off  their  boot-toes  on  the  red-hot  stove.  The 
blessed  committee  —  if  the  town  is  large  they 
number  two,  but  if  small,  then  five — have  gone 
to  the  depot  to  catch  the  lecturer.  He  do  n't 
come,  so  they  try  to  strike  him  with  lightning,  but 
the  wire  is  down  and  they  miss  him.  The  com 
mittee  return  to  the  hall  and  dismiss  the  hungry 
ears.  The  ears  level  objurgations  at  the  lecturer 
—  that  word  "objurgation"  always  reminds  me 
of  a  club  with  a  knot  in  it  —  and  lift  their  skirts, 
and  tie  down  their  pantaloons,  and  trail  them 
selves  home.  The  train  rolls  in  on  muffled  wheels 
at  midnight,  and  the  lecturer  in  it.  But  he 
does  not  land  —  not  he  —  but  keeps  on  to  Oswe- 
go,  where  are  more  ears.  During  the  day  he 
hears  from  the  committee.  The}^  want  him  to 
pay  for  lighting  that  hall,  and  making  that  fire, 
and  printing  those  bills,  and  spoiling  their  course, 
and  he  pays  it,  and  never  more  sees  the  halls 
of  the  Montezumas,  if  it  be  Mexico,  or  shrieks 
with  Campbell's  Freedom,  "  when  Kosciusko  fell," 
if  it  be  Pulaski. 


SNOW-BOUND.  87 

When  thus  snow-wrecked,  there  are  several 
ways  of  getting  warm  without  fire,  though  fire  is 
best.  And  just  here  comes  in  that  queer  law  of 
association.  If  reading  about  Dr.  Kane's  watch, 
that  he  handled  with  fur  gloves  because  it  was 
so  cold  it  burned  him,  will  not  do,  try  Mungo 
Park  toasting  to  death  under  an  African  tree, 
or  fancy  yourself  wiping  your  brow  with  a  dicky 
in  the  presence  of  an  admiring  audience,  or  sit 
ting  down  upon  your  new  hat  in  a  lady's  parlor 
—  if  none  of  these  things  will  start  the  circu 
lation,  then  nothing  will  do  but  fire.  That  ex 
perience  of  yours  in  Labrador  occurred  in  early 
April,  when  bluebirds  ought  to  be  coming,  and 
the  sugar-bush  bright  with  the  camp-fire,  and 
you  think  of  a  ride  you  took  in  another  April 
long  ago,  upon  the  Memphis  &  Charleston  Rail 
way.  You  left  Stevenson,  a  hamlet  among  the 
Cumberlands.  The  train  was  indigo  -  blue  with 
soldiers.  The  country  was  wild  with  alarms. 
War  may  kill  the  husbandman,  but  it  never  halts 
the  Spring.  Life  is  bound  to  break  in  green 
surges  along  the  woods  and  brighten  the  moun 
tains.  The  air  was  warm  as  Northern  June. 
The  sky  was  soft  as  a  maiden's  eye  —  I  don't 
mean  Minerva — the  sun  unshorn  of  a  tress  of 
strength.  You  passed  Huntsville,  Alabama.  You 
were  in  a  country  lovely  as  a  pleasant  dream. 
The  flowers  all  abroad  in  the  garden,  a  touch 


88  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

of  gold  upon  the  growing  grain,  the  doors  and 
windows  all  set  wide  open.  The  swift  train, 
like  a  shuttle  in  a  loom,  wove  the  threads  of 
green,  and  blue,  and  the  strands  of  sunshine, 
and  the  fancy-work  of  flowers,  into  one  exquisite 
piece  of  tapestry,  and  laid  it  along  the  summer 
land.  Out  of  the  chill  of  the  mountains,  you 
washed  your  hands  in  the  blessed  air,  all  tinted 
and  perfumed,  and  were  glad.  You  left  Nash 
ville,  Louisville,  Indianapolis,  Chicago,  behind  you. 
You  are  bound  for  La  Crosse.  Twenty-four 
hours  ago  it  was  June.  Now  it  is  March.  The 
ground  is  frosted  like  a  bridal  loaf.  The  pas 
tures  are  brown.  The  woods  lift  their  giant  arms 
in  silent  waiting. 

The  engine  has  run  over  parallels  of  latitude 
as  if  they  were  shadows,  but  it  has  done  more. 
It  has  borne  you  from  summer  to  winter  in  a 
round  day.  The  stain  of  ripe  strawberries  is  on 
your  fingers,  but  your  fingers  are  in  mittens ! 
We  are  all  fashioned  to  live  a  great  while  in  a 
little  while,  if  we  only  know  how.  June  and 
January  are  nearer  together  than  any  other  brace 
of  months  in  all  the  year.  Show  us  the  boy 
who,  when  he  counts  his  temporal  treasures  and 
thinks  of  the  Fourth  of  July,  does  not  make  a 
mental  dive  for  his  Christmas  stocking  the  next 
minute  ! 


SCALDED  TO  DEATH.  89 


CHAPTER    XII. 


SCALDED     TO     DEATH. 


STEAM  iitte,1  ruined  a  great  many  things  for  us, 
and  spoiled  much  poetry  that  was  good  and  true 
in  its  time.  The  songs  of  the  fireside  to  myriads 
are  dead  songs.  What  do  they  know  about 
hearths  and  hickory,  of  backstick  and  forestick 
and  topstick,  and  a  great,  cheerful  fire,  with  a 
human  smile  and  a  human  companionship  in  it, 
who  camp  around  an  unilluminated  hole  in  the 
floor,  and  feel  a  gust  of  hot  air  like  a  simoon? 
Did  you  ever  sit  before  a  fireplace  in  a  fall  night 
—  an  eccentric  philologist  says  that  "autumn" 
is  a  better  word  than  "fall"!  —  with  somebody 
you  owned  to  loving  very  much  ;  sat  an  hour 
without  speaking,  and  looked  into  the  fire,  you 
and  he,  you  and  she,  and  yet  it  seemed  to 
you  as  if  you  had  been  talking  all  the  while  ? 
It  was  the  fire  !  No  couple  can  sit  and  think 
thus  around  that  defective  spot  in  the  floor,  and 
enjoy  it,  unless  they  are  idiots.  Then  steam  has 
ruined  the  Iambic  poetry  of  the  flails,  and  sub- 
is  * 


90  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

stituted  therefor  a  gigantic  smut-machine,  that 
runs  wild  in  the  field,  and  puts  people's  eyes 
out,  and  gives  them  the  consumption,  and  burns 
up  the  wheat  stack,  and  blows  up  the  engineer. 
Where  is  your  champion  cradler,  that  went  in 
with  his  skeleton  fingers  and  laid  out  the  grain 
becomingly,  after  a  Christian  fashion?  Dead. 
Steam  killed  him.  And  what  has  become  of  the 
reaper,  and  Longfellow's,  and  everybody  else's 
poetry  about  him  ?  Cut  to  pieces  with  knives, 
ground  fine  with  wheels. 

The  clean  and  blessed  fists  that  kneaded  the 
dough  after  a  pugilistic  fashion  in  the  old  days, 
and  moulded  it  into  an  eloquent  answer  to  one 
of  the  petitions  in  the  Lord's  Prayer,  have  for 
gotten  their  cunning  —  steamed  to  death.  Enter 
a  Mechanical  Bakery.  Steam  has  bewitched 
everything.  Yonder  are  three,  five,  eight  barrels 
of  flour  tumbling  about  in  a  mass  of  dough  that 
would  crush  a  district  school,  teacher  and  all. 
No  hands.  There  are  doors  opening  in  the  two- 
story  oven,  and  cars  laden  with  bread  and  crack 
ers  come  rolling  out  on  a  railroad  track,  and  the 
doors  close  behind  them.  No  hands.  Yondei 
runs  a  train  in  at  an  open  door.  It  will  stay 
in  the  hot  chamber  twenty  minutes,  and  come 
out  of  its  own  accord.  The  engine  has  burned 
up  the  rolling-pin  and  the  moulding-board,  and 
the  big  wooden  cradle  wherein  they  kept  the 


SCALDED  TO  DEA  TH.  91 

dough  warm  till  it  "  rose "  like  any  other  mem 
ber  of  the  family;  the  fork  wherewith  the  blessed 
biscuits  and  the  mince-pies  were  tattooed  like 
New  Zealanders  is  thrown  away,  and  the  knife 
that  marked  the  old  oval  shortcakes  thus,  **,  and 
without  which  household  monogram  shortcakes 
were  not  shortcakes,  has  followed  the  fork. 

When  they  kindled  a  fire  within  the  ribs  of 
oak,  and  sent  the  steamer  panting  around  the 
world,  the  old  tradition  of  the  ship  was  scalded 
to  death.  No  more  the  tall  masts  cloud  up,  as 
the  sky  clouds,  at  the  captain's  word  of  com 
mand.  No  more  does  the  breath  of  his  trumpet 
roll  up  the  piles  of  sails,  volume  above  volume, 
and  the  nimble  blue-jackets  perched  aloft  swing 
themselves  along  the  ratlines,  and  cling  to  noth 
ing,  like  so  many  garden-spiders  in  their  webs. 
It  is  a  mimic  storm  of  canvas,  with  Jack-tars  in 
stead  of  angels  playing  uin  the  plighted  clouds!" 
Take  a  full-rigged  ship,  showing  everything  she 
can  carry,  and  dressed  in  her  best  bunting,  and 
watch  her  with  a  glass  as  she  comes  up  into  the 
horizon  and  stands  squarely  upon  the  visible  sea, 
courtesying  her  way  into  the  harbor  like  a  high 
born  dame  of  the  olden  time!  It  is  the  state 
liest  thing,  so  far,  of  man's  making. 

Read  of  the  naval  battles  that  went  long  ago 
into  song  and  story ;  of  the  great  admirals ;  of 
Nelson  and  the  rest ;  of  the  masterly  manoeu- 


92  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

vering  of  McDonough  and  Perry  and  all  the  dead 
Commodores  that  have  made  lake  and  sea  mem 
orable,  when  they  spread  their  great  wings  and 
swooped  down  upon  the  enemy  like  sea-eagles. 
It  is  grand  to  think  of.  No  machinery  below 
deck  grinding  away  like  a  mill ;  nothing  aboard 
but  the  capstan,  to  heave  in  the  cables  and 
bring  the  anchors  home.  It  must  have  been 
something  worth  while  to  float  a  broad  pennant 
from  a  seventy-four,  manned  with  a  thousand 
men !  Steam  and  wheels  have  succeeded  to  the 
old  glories,  and  when  you  see  a  low-quartered 
crocodile  of  a  thing,  black,  unseemly,  hugging 
the  water,  and  with  a  dingy-looking  drum  upon 
its  back,  never  despise  it !  There  is  no  telling 
what  it  can  do.  It  is  a  turreted  monitor  in  an 
iron  jacket,  and  carries  a  gun  so  preposterously 
large,  that  it  is  not  a  boat  with  a  gun  in  it,  but 
a  gun  with  a  boat  to  it.  It  rips  up  your  sev 
enty-four  as  a  rhinoceros  an  elephant,  and  sneaks 
about  under  the  guns  unscathed. 

Of  guns  :  those  Woolwich  infants,  as  they  call 
them  with  a  sort  of  grim  facetiousness,  that  will 
throw  eight  hundred  pounds  of  iron  seven  miles! 
As  far  as  you  can  trot  a  horse  comfortably  in 
an  hour.  Could  n't  they  be  used  to  move  an 
iron-mine  from  one  country  to  another  ?  These 
devices,  that  steam  and  wheels  are  at  the  bot 
tom  of,  brought  into  the  service  of  Mars  and 


SCALDED  TO  DEA  Tff.  93 

his  tomahawk  of  a  sister,  Bellona,  never  seemed 
to  me  so  much  the  square  and  fair  implements 
of  manly  warfare,  as  infernal  machines  that  ought 
to  be  gathered  up  and  packed  away  in  the  base 
ment  of  John  Milton's  "  Paradise  Lost,"  with 
their  makers  just  inside  the  door  to  keep  watch 
test  somebody  should  steal  them  !  Then,  again, 
wheels  are  doing  their  best  to  trundle  an  ex 
quisite  Scriptural  picture  out  of  fashion.  Ships 
flock  not  so  much  "like  doves  to  the  windows," 
as  tremendous  forges  afloat,  with  their  pillared 
smokes  on  high ;  the  very  cloud  that  came  out 
of  the  little  bottle  and  took  shape,  and  was  the 
greatest  of  the  Genii  in  the  Arabian  Nights. 


94  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

ALL     ABOARD  ! 

A  train  on  the  Chicago  &  Northwestern  Road 
bound  for  California  —  a  long,  full  train  —  a  small 
world  on  wheels.  Everybody's  double  is  aboard. 
The  first  twenty-four  hours  settles  things.  The 
little  bursts  of  talk  have  given  out.  The  great 
monotone  of  the  wheels  sounds  over  all.  In  the 
second  twenty -four  the  small  stock  of  gossip, 
brought  along  fresh,  is  consumed  with  the  last 
crumbs  of  the  home  luncheon  that  was  brought 
along  with  it.  People  begin  to  show  their  grain. 
One  man  is  a  bear.  He  falls  back  on  the  re 
serves,  and  sucks  his  paws  for  a  living,  and  win 
ters  through  the  trip.  He  is  n't  a  playful  bruin, 
but  he  is  harmless.  He  entered  the  car  tolerably 
plump.  He  leaves  it  intolerably  lean.  He  is  a 
Spring  bear. 

Another  falls  to  devouring  books  —  he  eats  as 
a  horse  eats,  incessantly ;  he  talks  as  a  horse 
talks,  not  at  all  —  reads  right  through  States,  Ter 
ritories  and  deserts,  over  rivers,  mountains  and 


ALL  ABOARD.  95 

plains.  He  might  as  well  have  gone  to  the 
Pacific  in  a  tunnel. 

See  that  woman  in  gray?  A  dormouse.  She 
sleeps  little  naps  fifty  miles  long,  several  times  a 
day.  She  is  an  arrow  of  a  woman  —  only  aims 
at  what  she  means  to  hit.  A  great  many  people 
are  arrows :  they  get  through  the  world  with 
nothing  to  show  for  it. 

Her  neighbor  is  a  knitter.  Click,  click,  go  the 
needles  all  day  long.  She  would  be  glad  to  uknit 
up  Care's  raveled  sleeve,"  or  the  hose  for  a  fire- 
company.  Wholesome  to  look  at  with  her  white 
cap  and  silver  hair,  but  no  more  of  a  traveling 
companion  than  a  cat. 

Yonder  is  a  motherly  old  lady,  going  to  see  a 
son  in  Iowa  or  Nebraska,  and  stay  all  winter. 
She  lives  in  a  house  that  has  a  lean-to  and  a 
great  motherly  kitchen,  where  they  set  the  dough 
down  on  the  hearth  in  its  big  wooden  cradle,  and 
make  cider  apple  sauce  by  the  barrel,  and  give 
you  good,  honest  cheer.  You  can  tell  all  this  by 
her  looks. 

There  's  an  old-time  Eastern  grandma.  If  any 
body  had  told  her  twenty  years  ago  she  would 
ever  wander  beyond  the  Missouri  River,  she 
would  have  thought  anybody  an  idiot.  The  loco 
motive  has  done  it,  and  is  whisking  her  across 
the  continent !  She  takes  snuff.  There  is  a  faint 
suspicion  of  "  Scotch "  on  her  upper  lip.  She 


96  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

takes  out  the  shiny  black  box  from  her  black 
silk  workbag  —  the  shiny  black  box  with  a  yel 
low  picture  of  Queen  Anne,  or  somebody  in  a 
mighty  ruff,  upon  the  cover.  She  holds  that  box 
in  her  left  hand.  She  takes  off  the  cover  and 
whips  it  under  the  box  with  her  right.  She 
gives  the  side  two  little  knocks  with  a  knuckle. 
The  tawny  titillative  sets  itself  aright  in  the  box. 
There  is  something  in  the  snuff  looking  like  a 
discomfited  beetle,  that  shakes  the  yellow  dust  off 
at  her  double  knock.  It  is  a  vanilla  bean.  It 
is  a  liberal  box  —  liberal  as  her  dear  old  heart  — 
and  holds  seventy-five  sneezes !  She  offers  it  to 
everybody  within  arm's-length.  A  true  gentleman 
who  abominates  snuff  takes  a  dainty  pinch  with 
a  smile  and  a  "thank  you."  So  does  a  genuine 
lady.  But  a  saucy  chit,  of  modern  make,  snuffs 
contemptuously  without  taking  any,  and  so  does 
a  dashing  sprig  of  a  fellow  who  never  had  a 
grandmother,  and  deserves  none.  This  Old- World 
courtesy  over,  grandma  takes  a  pinch  herself 
Watch  her.  She  touches  first  this  side,  then  that, 
in  a  delicate  way,  with  a  thumb  and  finger, 
shuts  her  eyes,  and  with  two  long  comforting 
snuffs  disposes  of  the  allowance.  Mrs.  James 
Madison  was  a  lady.  So  is  grandma.  Mrs.  James 
Madison  took  snuff  and  displayed  two  handker 
chiefs,  one  for  preliminaries,  and  the  other,  as 
she  herself  said,  "for  polishing  off."  So  does 


ALL  ABOARD,  97 


grandma.  One  is  cotton  and  bluG^  and  the  other 
is  cambric  and  white.  She  sneezes.  God  bless 
her  !  Her  life  has  been  as  harmless  as  a  bed  of 
sage,  and  as  wholesome  as  summer-savory. 

Is  it  a  sin  to  take  snuff?  Not  for  grandma. 
There  is  no  Bible  prohibition  for  anybody,  and 
not  because  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  lived  a  while 
after  Bible  times,  either.  Neither  were  there 
railroads  then,  but  here  is  an  injunction  to  rail 
way  travelers,  in  case  of  accidents,  as  old  as 
Hebrew:  '''•Their  strength  is  in  sitting  still!" 
The  writer  saw  a  man  leave  a  car  because  it 
had  broken  loose  from  a  train,  jump  head-first 
against  a  wood-pile,  and  knock  his  brains  out. 
To  make  a  cautious  statement,  he  thinks  those 
brains  were  a  severe  loss  to  the  owner.  The 
writer  has  seen  a  man  weighing  fourteen  stone 
try  to  climb  into  the  hat-rack  to  get  out  of 
harm's  way,  when  the  train  left  the  track.  Had 
the  car  turned  over,  there  would  have  been  an 
other  heavy  cerebral  calamity. 

Yonder  is  a  party  of  four  around  a  little  table. 
You  catch  fragments  of  talk  about  "  decks  "  and 

O 

;'  right-bowers,"  as  if  they  were  sailors  ashore  ; 
"clubs,"  as  if  they  were  policemen;  "kings" 
and  "  queens,"  like  so  many  royalists  ;  "  going 
to  Chicago,"  when  they  are  all  bound  West  ; 
"  tricks,"  as  if  they  were  conjurors.  Then  a 
laugh,  somebody  says  "  euchre  !  "  and  the  game 

13 


98  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

and  the  secret  are  out  together.  An  old  man 
in  a  home-spun  coat  and  a  puzzled  face  watches 
the  quartette.  It  is  all  Greek  to  him.  He  used 
to  play  "  old  sledge"  when  he  was  a  boy,  on 
the  hay-mow  of  a  rainy  afternoon  and  nothing 
to  do.  The  quaint  face  cards  look  familiar,  but 
their  conduct  is  inexplicable. 

A  man  needs  about  as  many  resources  on  a 
long  railway  journey  as  Robinson  Crusoe  needed 
on  that  island  of  his.  He  wants  a  "  man  Fri 
day"  of  some  sort.  If,  like  Mark  Twain's  Holy 
Land  mud-turtles,  he  cannot  sing  himself,  he 
must  know  how  to  make  others  sing.  Have  you 
never  met  a  man  who  was  a  sort  of  diachylon 
plaster  ?  Who  dro  vv  you  out  in  spite  of  your 
self,  and  put  you  at  your  best,  till  you  were 
not  quite  sure  what  he  had  been  doing  to  you? 
That  man  knows  how  to  travel.  Two  prime 
qualities  go  to  the  make  -  up  of  a  successful 
tourist :  the  art  of  seeing  and  the  art  of  listen 
ing.  If,  added  to  these,  he  understands  the  art 
of  telling,  then  he  is  a  triumph  in  a  locomotive 
way. 

But  the  wheels  are  beating  the  iron  bars  like 
a  hundred  hammers.  It  is  a  November  night, 
and  the  icy  rain  drives  sharply  against  the  win 
dows.  The  out-look  is  dreary  enough.  The 
Argumentative  Man  —  there  is  almost  always  one 
on  board  —  has  gone  to  sleep.  You  know  him. 


ALL  ABOARD. 

He  's  the  man  who  sits  upon  the  seat  in  front  of 
you,  and  overhears  you  make  some  statement  to 
a  friend — perhaps  doctrinal.  Your  Argumentative 
Man  is  strong  on  doctrine.  He  wheels  about  on 
the  seat,  throws  one  leg  over  the  arm,  and  picks 
you  up.  He  addresses  you  as  "  Neighbor,"  or 
"Stranger," — possibly  "Colonel."  If  the  last, 
you  know  whence  he  comes,  and  wish  he  would 
make  himself  the  second,  and  are  glad  he  is  not 
the  first.  But  he  begins  upon  you.  He  quotes 
Paul  at  you,  or  Isaiah,  or  Genesis,  or  somebody. 
He  crows  over  you.  He  gets  upon  his  hind  feet, 
and  stands  in  the  aisle  and  raises  his  voice,  and 
looks  around  upon  the  half-dozen  within  ear-shot 
to  challenge  their  admiration  when  he  thinks  he 
makes  a  point.  He  is  the  man  that  always  lays 
his  argument  upon  the  thumb-nail  of  his  left 
hand,  leveled  like  an  anvil,  and  then  forges  it 
every  second  or  two  with  the  thumb-nail  of  his 
right  hand,  and  when  he  thinks  he  has  you  fast 
just  holds  one  nail  on  the  other  a  little  while, 
as  if  it  were  you  he  had  finished  and  was  hold 
ing  there  till  you  got  cool. 

That  man  is  exasperating.  It  is  next  to  im 
possible  to  be  a  Christian  where  he  is,  and  very 
hard  to  be  a  decent  man.  They  give  penny-royal 
tea  to  bring  out  the  measles.  He  is  a  decoction 
of  human  penny-royal,  and  brings  to  the  surface 
all  the  ill  humors  there  are  in  you.  Sometimes 


100  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

your  Argumentative  Man  is  a  clergyman,  some 
times  a  layman,  but  you  wish  the  train  was  a 
ship  bound  for  Tarshish,  and  the  Man's  name  was 
Jonah,  and  a  convenient  whale  alongside,  though 
you  are  sorry  for  the  whale  —  but  then  we  are  all 
selfish,  if  we  are  not  whales !  But  the  Man 
is  asleep,  and  the  knitting-work  put  away,  and 
the  cards  have  had  their  last  shuffle,  and  grand 
ma  is  dreaming  of  home,  and  ever  so  many  more 
are  gazing  up  at  the  car  lights  in  a  stupid  way, 
or  looking  out  through  the  blank  windows  at — 
nothing.  The  man  with  the  black  bottle  is  low- 
spirited,  so  is  the  bottle,  and  he  has  settled  his 
head  down  between  his  shoulders — shut  up  like 
a  telescope.  It  is  all  dull  and  stupid  enough. 

There  are  two  women  seated  together,  plain 
women,  say  forty-five  or  fifty  years  old.  They 
have  good,  open,  friendly  faces.  Plainly  dressed, 
modest,  and  silent  save  when  they  conversed 
with  each  other,  you  had  hardly  noticed  them. 
Perhaps  there  was  the  least  touch  of  rural  life 
about  them.  They  would  make  capital  country 
aunts  to  visit  in  mid-summer,  or  mid-winter  for 
that  matter.  If  they  were  mothers  at  all,  they 
were  good  ones.  So  much  you  see,  if  you  know 
how. 

Well,  it  was  wearing  on  towards  twelve  o'clock 
—  the  reader  is  requested  to  believe  that  this  is 
no  fancy  sketch  —  when  through  the  dull  silence 


ALL  ABOARD.  101 

there  rose  a  voice  as  clear  and  mellow  and  flex 
ible  as  a  girl's,  of  the  quality  that  goes  to  the 
heart  like  the  greeting  of  a  true  friend.  It  be 
longed  to  one  of  those  women.  She  sat  with  her 
white  face,  a  little  seamed  with  time  and  trouble, 
turned  neither  to  the  right  nor  the  left,  seem 
ingly  unconscious  that  she  had  a  listener.  They 
were  the  old  songs  she  sang  —  the  most  of  them, 
—  songs  of  the  conference  and  the  camp  —  such 
as  the  sweet  young  Methodists,  and  Baptists 
withal,  with  their  hair  combed  back,  used  to  sing 
in  the  years  that  are  gone. 
First  it  was 

"  Rock  of  Ages  !    cleft  for  me," 

and   then, 

"  Our  days  are  gliding  swiftly  on." 

The  clear  tones  grew  rounder  and  sweeter.  Those 
that  were  awake  listened ;  those  that  were  asleep 
awoke  all  around  her.  Some  left  their  seats  and 
came  nearer,  but  she  never  noticed  them.  A 
brakeman,  who  had  not  heard  a  "  psalm  tune " 
since  his  mother  led  him  to  church  by  the  hand 
when  he  was  a  little  boy,  and  who  was  rattling 
the  stove  as  if  he  were  fighting  a  chained  ma 
niac,  laid  down  the  poker  and  stood  still. 
Then  it  was : 

"  A  charge  to  keep  I  have," 

and   so  hymn  after  hymn,  until  at  last  she  struck 
up: 


102  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

l<  I  will  sing  you  a  song  of  that  Beautiful  Land, 

The  far-away  home  of  the  soul, 
Where  no  storms  ever  beat  on  the  glittering  strand, 
While  the  years  of  eternity  roll. 

"  O,  that  home  of  the  soul  in  my  visions  and  dreams 

Its  bright  jasper  walls  I  can  see, 
And  I  fancy  but  dimly  the  veil  intervenes 
Between  that  fair  city  and  me." 

The  car  was  a  wakeful  hush  long  before  she 
had  ended ;  it  was  as  if  a  beautiful  spirit  were 
floating  through  the  air.  None  that  heard  will 
ever  forget.  Philip  Phillips  can  never  bring  that 
"home  of  the  soul"  any  nearer  to  anybody.  And 
never,  I  think,  was  quite  so  sweet  a  voice  lifted 
in  the  storm  of  a  November  night  on  the  roll 
ing  plains  of  Iowa.  It  is  a  year  ago.  The  sing 
er's  name,  home  and  destination  no  one  learned, 
but  the  thought  of  one  listener  follows  her  with 
an  affectionate  interest.  Is  she  living  ?  Surely 
singing,  wherever  she  is.  I  bid  her  GodspeecL 
She  charmed  and  cheered  the  November  gloom 
with  carols  of  the  Celestial  City.  She  passed 
with  the  full  dawn  of  the  coming  morning  out 
of  our  lives,  and  there  is  a  strange  ache  at  the 
heart  as  we  think  so.  Whoever  heard  her  that 
night  could  write  her  epitaph.  They  could  say 
— they  could  write  : 

SACRED 
TO    THE    MEMORY 

OF   THE 

WOMAN     WITH     THE 

IN  THE  NIGHT. 


EARL  Y  AND  LA  TE.  103 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


EARLY     AND     LATUe 

SWIFT  motion  is  the  passion  of  the  age.  See 
a  picture,  see  a  statue,  see  a  poem,  the  question 
is,  How  long  did  it  take  to  do  it  ?  The  press 
that  does  an  old-fashioned  month's  work  in  thirty 
minutes  ;  the  method  by  which  the  engraver's  pa 
tient  labor,  with  skill  in  every  touch  of  the  burin, 
for  a  weary  week,  is  counterfeited  in  fifteen  min 
utes;  the  sewing-machine  that  kills  one  woman 
and  does  the  work  of  twenty  more,  running  up 
a  seam  like  a  squirrel  up  a  limb ;  the  railroad 
train  that  can  stitch  two  distant  places  the  most 
closely  together  —  such  are  the  things  that  kindle 
enthusiasm. 

Did  you  ever  see  a  man  who  had  not  ridden 
a  mile  a  minute,  or  who  did  not  think  he  had  ? 
("A  mile  a  minute"  is  a  bit  of  flippant  talk, 
like  the  man's  who  declared  of  a  certain  Fourth 
of  July  that  he  had  seen  a  hundred  better  cele 
brations.)  I  never  did,  except  two.  One  of  them 
had  never  seen  a  locomotive,  and  the  other  con- 


104  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

scientiouj.ly  thought  he  went  a  lit-tle  short  of 
fifty -nine.  A  mile  a  minute  has  considerable 
meaning.  It  implies  a  velocity  of  eighty-eight 
feet  in  &  second.  It  would  keep  a  train  ahead, 
or  at  least  abreast,  of  a  brisk  gale,  so  that  there 
would  be  no  wind  at  all.  It  wouldn't  disturb 
your  front  hair,  my  girl,  if  you  stood  on  the  rear 
platform,  and  played  Lot's  wife  by  looking  over 
your  shouldor.  It  could  n't  catch  you  —  at  least 
it  could  n't  fan  you  —  for  it  is  a  spanking  gale 
that  makes  sixty  miles  an  hour  in  harness. 

But  everybody  has  gone  a  mile  a  minute  by 
the  cars.  The  writer  has  tried  to  tell  a  number 
of  people  several  times  that  lie  had ;  that  be 
tween  New -Buffalo  and  Michigan  City,  on  the 
Michigan  Central  Road,  and  one  of  the  noblest 
and  best  -  officered  thoroughfares  in  the  land,  he 
did  go  five  miles  in  a  minute  apiece ;  and  he 
went  on  explaining  that  the  track  was  straight 
as  an  arrow  and  smooth  as  glass,  so  that  his 
auditors  might  believe  it  aad  wonder  over  it,  and 
they  all,  one  after  another,  rose  and  declared  that 
they  had  gone  a  mile  a  minute,  and  not  one  of 
them  as  few  miles  as  a  paltry  five !  Were  }^ou 
ever  standing  on  the  deck  of  a  sailing-craft,  with 
a  brisk  breeze  blowing,  when  all  at  once  it  fell 
to  a  dead  calm,  or  went  about  so  that  your  face 
was  swashed  with  the  wet  canvas,  and  jToiir  hat 
knocked  overboard?  The  writer  was  that 


EARL  Y  AND  LA  TE.  105 

tunate  navigator.  So  now  he  contents  himself 
with  telling  that,  years  ago,  he  rode  on  a  train 
of  the  old  Toledo  &  Adrian  Railway  —  strap- 
rail  at  that,  where  they  had  just  half  spikes 
enough,  and  pulled  them  out  after  the  train 
passed,  and  drove  them  into  the  other  end  of 
the  bars,  to  be  ready  for  the  engine  when  it 
returned  —  rode  twelve  miles  an  hour  —  a  mile 
every  five  minutes ;  that  it  was  good  time,  and 
everybody  was  proud  of  it.  All  of  which  was 
true.  His  auditors  are  all  silent.  He  has  the 
track ;  for  if  one  of  them  ever  rode  any  more 
slowly,  he  is  ashamed  to  let  anybody  know  it! 
But  there  has  not  been  the  wonderful  increase 
of  speed  on  railways  that  we  are  led  to  think. 
Thus,  thirteen  years  ago  last  May  — 1860  —  at  the 
time  of  the  Chicago  Convention,  the  train  bearing 
the  Eastern  delegates  ran  from  Toledo  to  Chicago, 
over  the  Michigan  Southern  Road,  two  hundred 
and  forty-three  miles,  in  five  hours  and  fifty 
minutes,— forty  and  a  half  miles  an  hour.  It 
ran  a  match  race  with  a  train  on  the  Michigan 
Central,  and  reached  Chicago  twenty-five  minutes 
ahead.  It  was  a  great  day  for  the  late  John  D. 
Campbell,  the  Superintendent  of  the  winning 
road,  when,  standing  on  the  steps  of  the  Sher 
man  House  in  Chicago,  he  introduced  the  Super 
intendent  and  passengers  of  the  belated  Central 
to  the  crowd  brought  by  the  Southern,  that  were 

14 


106  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

there  awaiting  them.  Poor  Campbell !  he  has 
gone  to  the  silent  terminus  of  all  earthly  lines. 
Not  long  ago,  Mr.  Vanderbilt  and  party  made  a 
trip  from  St.  Louis  to  Toledo,  the  engines  doing 
their  best.  The  distance  is  four  hundred  and 
thirty- two  miles,  the  rate  forty  and  one-tenth 
miles  an  hour,  the  actual  running  forty-five  and 
a  half — an  average  not  decidedly  favorable  to 
continued  health  or  remarkable  length  of  days. 
Locomotives  never  cultivate  the  grace  of  pa 
tience,  though  we  should  naturally  think  they 
would.  The  more  engines  there  are  to  puff  for 
us,  the  more  we  puff.  We  chafe  at  a  detention 
of  thirty  minutes  more  than  our  grandfathers  did, 
of  thirty  days.  You  know  the  man  that  always 
wants  to  go  faster?  Of  the  twin  luxuries  of 
high  civilization,  grumbling  and  the  gallows,  he 
enjoys  grumbling  best.  His  watch  in  one  hand, 
his  Guide  in  the  other,  and  neither  right,  he 
compares  the  whereabouts  of  the  one  with  the 
time  of  the  other.  He  vows  we  are  not  going 
fifteen  miles  an  hour  when  the  rate  is  twenty- 
five  if  it  is  a  rod.  His  chronic  mania  is  to 
"connect"  He  didn't  "connect"  yesterday,  nor 
the  day  before,  nor  any  other  day,  and  he  never 
will  "  connect "  again  as  long  as  he  lives.  He 
isn't  willing  the  engine  should  have  a  billet  of 
wood  or  a  drop  of  water.  In  fact,  he  is  op 
posed  to  the  train  stopping  at  all,  to  let  any- 


EARL  Y  AND  LA  TE.  107 

body  off  or  on,  until  he  has  ridden  out  the  last 
inch  of  his  ticket.  Denouncing  collisions,  he 
hopes  that  train  Number  One  —  his  train  is  al 
ways  Number  One  —  will  not  wait  a  minute  for 
Number  Two,  that  is  plunging  on  towards  him 
upon  a  single  track  like  a  Devil's-darning-needle. 
i4  Have  n't  we  got  the  right  of  way  ? "  and  that 
settles  it. 

The  fellow  has  lost  the  escapement  out  of  his 
mental  watch-works,  and  he  runs  down  as  quick 
as  you  wind  him  up.  Take  him  to  pieces,  and 
you  will  find  lie  has  none.  Years  ago,  one  of 
the  staunch  old  Lake  steamers  made  the  quickest 
trip  from  Buffalo  to  Chicago  then  on  the  record 
of  locomotion.  Its  passengers  took  a  last  look  of 
New  York  and  a  first  look  of  Chicago  a  little 
nearer  together  than  anybody  ever  did  before. 
The  writer  happened  to  be  on  the  dock  at  Chica 
go  when  the  steamer  was  nearing  it.  "  Forward," 
was  a  man  with  a  carpet-bag  in  his  hand.  He 
was  a  rusty  man,  as  if  he  had  been  lost  like 
a  pocket-knife,  and  somebody  had  accidentally 
dug  him  up.  He  was  trying  to  get  over  the 
guards  somewhere,  so  as  to  jump  ashore  before 
the  steamer  "  made  a  landing."  He  acted  like 
an  unruly  steer  trying  to  find  a  low  place  in 
the  fence.  Now,  as  it  proved,  he  was  the  same 
man  you  always  see  in  the  cars,  who  wants  to 
go  faster.  He  had  come  from  a  Schoharie  County 


108  THE    WORLD   ON    WHEELS. 

Hollow,  where  the  sun  never  rises  till  eight 
o'clock  and  goes  to  bed  two  hours  before  night. 
He  had  driven  a  yoke  of  ruminants  and  hoof- 
dividers  since  childhood.  He  was  going  out  West 
to  see  an  uncle  who  did  not  know  that  he  was 
coming,  and  would  not  have  cared  a  straw  if  he 
had  known.  He  had  made  the  quickest  voyage 
on  record,  but  he  was  the  original  man  who 
wants  to  go  faster. 

From  the  sacred  to  the  profane  is,  as  the 
world  reads,  like  turning  over  a  leaf  in  a  book. 
Admiral  Blake,  a  rough  but  noble  old  sea-dog, 
who  used  to  take  his  steamer  safely  through  as 
dirty  weather  as  ever  slopped  a  deck,  saw  this 
man,  and,  albeit  not  the  president  of  any  insti 
tution  of  learning,  conferred  the  degree  upon 
him  then  and  there  of  D.D.,  the  two  letters 
being  kept  at  a  proper  distance  by  a  dash,  and 
he  gave  him  a  name  that  could  hardly  have  been 
his  father's.  It  was  the  short  word  that  Mr. 
Froude  threw  at  the  New  York  reporter's  head 
when  he  asked  the  historian  how  he  pronounced 
his  name :  "  Like  double  o  in  fool,  sir."  Th<j 
old  Admiral's  profanity  is  thus  left  scattered 
through  this  sentence  in  a  fragmentary  condition, 
It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  pick  it  up  and  ad 
just  it. 

Only    this :    I    never    could    see    the    piety   of 


EARL  Y  AND  LA  TE. 


109 


printing  an  oath  with  a  dash  in  it.  The  wolf's 
scalp  is  all  you  need  to  have  to  get  the  bounty  0 
To  impale  an  oath  upon  a  straight  stick  neither 
hurts  the  oath  nor  helps  the  swearer.  It  is  pro 
fanity  by  brevet,  and  ought  to  be  banished  from 
the  realm  of  type.  If  a  man  wants  to  write 
"  infernal,"  and  he  should  not  want  to  Avrite  it 
unless  it  is  proper,  let  him  letter  it  squarely 
out  i-n-f-e-r-n-a-l,  instead  of  sneaking  into  print 
with  the  head  and  tail  of  it- — in-f-n-1. 

There  used  to  be  a  picture  that  presented  the 
funny  side  of  the  man  who  is  always  a  little  late. 
It  showed  a  railway  train  rolling  grandly  out, 
the  fleeces  of  smoke  dotting  the  route  on  the  air 
above  it.  Behind,  at  the  distance  of  an  eighth  of 
a  mile,  and  losing  ground  every  minute,  as  you 
knew  by  his  looks,  was  a  man,  his  long  hair 
and  his  short  coat-skirt  leveled  away  behind  him 
like  the  two  horizontals  of  the  letter  p.  He 
was  after  the  train;  he  had  been  left,  and  those 
railroad  ties  flew  out  from  under  his  feet  at  a 
lively  rate.  The  engine  enjoyed  it,  and  the  artist 
helped  to  give  expression  to  the  creature's  sat 
isfaction,  for  on  every  volume  of  smoke  and 
steam,  in  letters  constantly  growing  smaller  and 
feebler  as  the  clouds  rolled  farther  and  farther 
away,  like  a  faint  cry  in  the  distance,  he  had 
written  the  words 

"  T  'YE  GOT  YOUR   TRUNK  !  " 

"  T  Ve   got   your   trunk !  " 

"I've  got  your  trunk!" 

"J'"e   got   your   trunk!" 


110 


THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 


You   could   hear   that  jolly  and   saucy  locomotive 
say   every   word   of  it. 

The  man  who  lets  himself  loose  to  pursue  a 
train  is  a  public  benefactor.  Everybody  is  pleased 
with  the  performance — but  the  performer.  The 


-r?V~        -  TPiT^ 


A  LITTLE  LATE! 

loungers  on  the  platform  at  the  station  encourage 
him  with  shouts  that  put  "  spurs  in  the  sides  of 
his  intent."  The  engineer  leans  out  at  his  win 
dow  and  lets  the  engine  whistle  for  him,  and 
sometimes  slackens  a  little,  just  by  way  of  de 
lusive  encouragement.  The  brakeman  on  the  rear 
platform  seems  to  be  putting  on  the  brakes  with 


EARLY  AND  LATE.  Ill 

might  and  main,  to  hold  the  train  for  him  to 
catch  it.  Passengers  beckon  to  him,  and  wave 
him  on  with  hand  and  handkerchief.  When  he 
lags  a  little,  the  observers  cheer  him,  and  he 
dashes  on  in  prodigious  bursts  of  speed.  Boys 
whirl  up  their  hats  and  bet  he  '11  win.  But 
his  heart  begins  to  kick  like  an  unruly  colt,  and 
he  comes  to  a  halt  and  stands  like  a  mile-post 
and  stares  after  the  receding  train.  Then  he 
turns  and,  mopping  his  face  with  his  handkerchief, 
walks  slowly  over  the  course.  He  does  not  seem 
anxious  to  reach  the  depot,  although  by  the 
laughing  of  the  crowd  he  knows  they  are  all 
glad  to  see  him  coming.  He  can  count  more 
teeth  than  he  ever  saw  at  one  time,  except  in  a 
Saginaw  gang-saw  mill.  But  he  seems  to  shrink 
in  a  modest  way  from  the  greeting  he  is  so 
sure  of. 

Now  there  were  Christians  in  that  crowd. 
There  must  have  been.  There  were  in  Sodom. 
There  are  everywhere  except  among  the  Moclocs. 
But  I  am  afraid  there  was  not  a  Christian  on 
that  train  or  about  that  station  that  in  his  se 
cret  heart  wanted  that  man  to  catch  the  cars 
—  that  could  have  prayed  for  the  achievement, 
no  matter  what  depended  upon  it,  p-nd  kept  his 
countenanceo 


112  THE   WORLD  ON  WHEELS. 


CHAPTER    XV. 


DEAD    HEADS. 

"D.  H."  Everybody  knows  what  D.  H.  is. 
He  sees  it  on  the  telegram  that  costs  him  noth 
ing.  He  sees  it  in  the  glass  when  he  looks  at 
himself,  if  he  rides  free  upon  the  train  —  Dead 
Head.  It  never  had  a  pleasant  sound,  and  lately 
it  has  grown  almost  opprobrious.  In  the  begin 
ning,  the  courtesy  of  a  pass  was  extended  to 
the  drivers  of  the  quill.  The  editor  and  his 
family  and  his  wife's  mother  and  the  pressman 
and  the  devil  all  rode  scot-free. 

Then  State  Lycurguses  en  masse  with  their 
families  and  their  mothers-in-law,  members  of 
every  house  of  Congress,  all  kinds  of  Judges, 
all  people  that  were  "  their  Excellencies,"  or 
"  Honorables,"  very  rich  men  that  could  buy  a 
couple  of  hundred  miles  of  the  road  and  not 
mind  it,  and  last,  clergymen.  These  were  classed 
with  children  under  eight  years  old,  for  they 
went  at  half-fare — rode  one  half  mile  for  noth 
ing  and  paid  for  the  other  half.  The  ground  of 


DEAD  HEADS,  113 

this  fractional  manifestation  of  grace  is  debatable. 
Possibly  it  was  poverty,  and  if  poverty,  then  to 
the  shame  of  the  churches  that  'received  the 
earnest  and  incessant  labors  of  men,  and  then 
sent  them  out  begging  for  a  living.  It  is  a  hard, 
ugly  word,  but  it  is  the  true  one. 

At  length  when,  upon  a  single  line  of  road, 
six  thousand  people  were  all  riding  at  once  fare- 
free  as  a  flock  of  pigeons ;  and  when  people  who 
held  "  complimentaries "  were  asked  to  hold  their 
tongues  when  they  ought  to  tell  the  truth,  and 
shut  their  eyes  when  they  ought  to  keep  them 
open ;  and  when  editors  began  to  discover  that 
their  passes  made  them  about  the  cheapest  com 
modities  in  the  market,  and  that,  by  reason  of 
the  bit  of  pasteboard,  they  were  doing  more  work 
for  less  money  than  anybody  else  in  America, 
then  there  began  to  be  a  lull  in  the  pass-system. 
Railroad  Companies  had  spasms  of  resolutions 
that  they  would  confer  the  degree  of  D.  H.  upon 
nobody.  That  was  incredible,  for  when  a  rail 
road  finds  it  for  its  interest  to  issue  a  pass,  you 
may  believe  the  pass  will  be  forthcoming  with 
out  a  pang.  But  the  clergymen's  half-loaf  always 
seemed  to  me  a  sort  of  half-handed  charity  that 
should  have  been  resented,  in  a  Christian  way, 
instead  of  being  accepted.  That,  to-day,  they 
generally  recognize  the  fact  that  the  people  who 
do  not  pay  them  should  furnish  their  tickets, 

15* 


114  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

instead  of  the  people  who  never  heard  of  them 
till  they  produced  their  credentials  in  order  to 
be  numbered  with  the  infants,  is  a  more  truth 
ful  and  manful  view  of  the  situation. 

There  are  D.  H.'s  beyond  the  meaning  of  the 
railways.  There  was  a  church  in  Otsego  County, 
N.  Y.,  with  as  many  brains  and  as  much  grace 
in  it  as  in  any  country  church  of  its  time.  It 
had  a  minister,  faithful,  able,  earnest,  who  preached 
out-and-out  and  through-and-through  Bible  ser 
mons.  He  was  not  a  "star-preacher."  He  knew 
little  about  astronomy  save  the  Star  of  Bethle 
hem.  That  man  preached  forty  years  for  that 
church,  and  they  never  paid  him  a  dollar.  They 
made  "  bees,"  and  drew  up  his  winter's  wood, 
and  cut  his  grain.  That  was  all. 

Well,  he  was  gathered  to  his  fathers,  but  he 
had  spoiled  the  church.  He  had  educated  it  to 
be  D.  H.  without  knowing  it.  After  he  died, 
the  deacons  went  looking  about  for  a  two- 
hundred-and-fifty-dollar  minister,  and  you  can  get 
about  as  much  minister  for  that  price  as  you  can 
get  psalm-tune  out  of  a  file.  Finally  they  tried 
five  hundred  dollars'  worth.  It  was  a  cheap 
article  they  got.  It  was  hard  to  hear  him  preach, 
but  harder  for  them  to  pay  him  for  it.  They 
had  been  deplorably  educated.  They  were  Dead- 
Heads. 

Their   church    edifice    stands   to-day   on   a   hill, 


DEAD    HEADS.  115 

like  the  Celestial  City,  but  it  is  a  very  dilapi 
dated  one.  If  you  go  there  any  summer  Sun 
day,  you  shall  find  it  untenanted  save  by  the 
fowls  of  the  air.  They  had  a  funeral  there  last 
season,  for  Death  opens  the  old  building  some 
times,  and  on  a  window-ledge  near  where  the 
gray-haired  singers  used  to  strike  up  "Mear" 
and  "  Corinth "  and  old  "  China,"  a  mother-bird 
—  a  robin— sat  undisturbed  upon  her  nest.  The 
good  old  Elder's,  grave  across  the  road  is  sunken 
and  weed-grown.  "  So  runs  the  world  away." 

Writing  of  churches :  By  a  sort  of  common 
consent,  Modocs  seem  to  be  excepted  from  any 
general  plan  of  salvation  but  the  Quaker  plan. 
The  writer  once  went  as  far  West  as  the  rail 
road  could  carry  him,  and  then  took  the  bare 
ground  into  Nebraska  till  he  struck  the  Indian 

o 

country,  and  found  a  Mission  twenty  years  old 
in  the  wilderness.  It  is  probable  that  very  few 
of  them  deserved  baptizing,  but  they  all  wanted 
washing.  Having  heard  the  little  Indians  sing 
hymns,  you  went  about  a  mile  and  saw  where 
they  had  buried  a  horse,  that  the  dead  brave 
might  make  a  good  appearance  on  the  Happy 
Hunting  Grounds,  which  they  thought  he  would 
reach  in  about  fourteen  days. 

You  saw  red-ochre  fellows  who  were  well  up 
in  the  three  R's — "reading,  'riting  and  'rithme- 
tic" — who  had  slipped  back  into  the  old  burrows 


116  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

as  naturally  as  woodchucks.  You  saw  one  young 
man,  tolerably  educated,  who  had  served  in  the 
Federal  army,  and  served  well,  sunning  himself 
on  the  turfed  slope  of  a  summer  wigwam.  All 
that  was  left  of  his  civilization  was  the  tatters 
of  a  pair  of  blue  pantaloons.  He  had  slipped 
back  into  his  blanket,  and  felt  as  much  at  home 
in  it  as  a  fawn  in  his  spots,  though  the  com 
parison  is  greatly  damaging  to  the  fawn.  You 
ask  him  about  this  advance  backwards,  and  he 
says,  "  'Mong  white  folks  nothin'  but  Ingen. 
'Mong  Ingen  nobody  —  come  back  tribe  be  good 
Ingen  as  any."  And  you  have  the  situation 
clearly  stated  for  your  consideration. 

You  ask  the  missionary  how  many  of  the  tribe 
he  counts  as  Christian.  He  enumerates,  and  you 
wish  to  see  one.  He  points  him  out,  a  villain 
ous-looking  old  fellow  with  a  lowering  eye,  and 
the  most  of  his  head  packed  like  a  knapsack 
behind  his  ears,  and  you  think  a  little  prelim* 
inary  hewing  and  scoring  would  hardly  come 
amiss  to  make  him  a  safe  man  to  meet  in  the 
night-time,  and  trim  him  down  to  Christian  pro 
portions.  Say,  with'  a  hatchet,  hew  to  a  line  com 
mencing  just  in  front  of  his  organ  of  self-esteem, 
and  make  a  clean  sweep  of  things  to  a  point 
just  back  of  his  ears.  There  would  then  be  a 
better  organization  to  begin  upon.  After  that, 
Robert  Raike's  recipe,  plenty  of  water  with  soap 


DEAD   HEADS.  117 

in  it,  would  be  in  order.  Then  try  catechisms. 
Catch  an  Indian  young,  and  something  may  be 
made  of  him  if  he  does  n't  get  away,  but  an  old 
Indian  is  a  tough  creature  to  tame.  You  felt 
like  asking  the  missionary  if,  this  man  being  a 
Christian,  there  were  many  sinners  near  by.  If 
so,  it  seemed  prudent  to  get  back  to  the  rail 
road  without  standing  very  particularly  upon  "the 
order  of  your  going." 


118  THE   WORLD  ON  WHEELS. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


WOKKING 

SOMETHING  is  written  elsewhere  of  trie  grave 
yard  luncheons  they  took  in  the  Sunday  noonings. 
Those  were  the  times  when  the  minister  worked 
by  the  day.  The  Sunday  school  in  the  morning, 
for  the  lambs  led  off  the  flock.  Then  a  hymn  on 
both  sides  of  the  threshold  of  prayer,  and  a  lit 
tle  carpet  of  Scripture  laid  down  before  it.  The 
preacher  would  read  the  hymn,  and  say,  "  Sing 
five  verses ;"  and  if  he  did  not  happen  to  put  up 
the  bars  in  this  way  across  the  narrow  lane  of 
praise,  the  choir  were  bound  to  sing  it  through, 
if  it  was  as  long  as  "  The  Ancient  Mariner." 
Then  the  sermon,  wherein  there  was  a  world  of 
scoring  and  hewing,  and  showers  of  chips  that 
hit  people  here  and  there,  arid  the  work  was  laid 
out  generally.  Then  another  hymn,  the  prayer 
and  the  benediction.  This  took  till  high  noon. 
Then  afternoon,  wherein  the  morning's  frame  was 
put  together,  mortise  and  tenon  each  adjusted  in 


WORKING   "£  Y  THE  DA  Y. "  119 

its  own  place,  raised,  roofed  and  sided,  and  a 
doctrine  or  so  put  into  it  to  keep  house. 

The  afternoon  was  the  forenoon  over  again,  ex 
cept  that  the  grandest  of  all  mere  human  breaths 
of  praise,  the  Doxology,  was  sung,  and  "  the 
disciples  went  out."  The  congregation  always 
stood  when  the  clergyman  called  upon  the  name 
of  the  Lord ;  and  sometimes  he  called  a  long 
time,  and  occasionally  a  feeble  body,  and  now  and 
then  a  lazy  one,  went  down  like  a  forest  before 
a  mighty  wind !  Is  there  any  becoming  posture 
in  public  prayer  between  kneeling  and  standing? 
Is  it  not  either  the  one  extreme  or  the  other? 
To  see  a  congregation  with  their  heads  every 
way,  like  a  field  of  barley  after  a  hail-storm, 
does  not  inspire  a  sentiment  of  reverence  ;  but 
a  people  rising  to  their  feet  as  one  man  is  an 
impressive  act  of  homage.  Then  the  Bible  class 
was  chinked  in  somewhere  between  songs  and 
sermons,  and  the  conference-meeting  came  in  the 
evening,  and  held  till  nine  o'clock.  For  a  day 
of  rest,  the  old-fashioned  Sunday  was  about  as 
busy  as  a  meadow  full  of  hands  with  the  hay 
down  and  a  storm  coming ! 

Once  in  four  weeks  was  covenant-meeting.  It 
occurred  on  Saturday  afternoons,  began  at  one, 
and  lasted  till  four  or  five.  The  little  boys  of 
good  people  in  the  writer's  childhood  had  to  go 
to  covenant-meeting.  The  writer's  parents  were 


120  THE   WORLD  ON  WHEELS. 

good  people,  and  he  went.  The  reader  is  re 
quested  to  remember  that  Saturday  afternoon 
was  the  old-time  holiday  —  the  only  clay  in  the 
week  when  the  small  animal,  man,  could  kick  up 
its  heels  with  the  halter  off.  There  is  no  recol 
lection  more  vivid  and  more  painful  than  of 
those  tremendous  Saturday  afternoons.  I  had 
heard  of  Joshua,  and  I  could  n't  persuade  myself 
that  he  was  dead,  though  I  wickedly  hoped  he 
was,  for  somebody  must  have  commanded  the 
sun  "  to  stand  still,"  and  it  obeyed. 

The  laugh  of  the  children  of  the  perverse  gen 
eration  came  faintly  and  sweetly  from  the  neigh 
boring  orchard.  The  rays  of  the  sun  streamed 
aslant  through  the  still  air  of  the  church  like 
the  visible  ladder  of  glory,  but  not  to  the  rest' 
less  eyes  that  watched,  but  only  the  token  of  the 
expended  day,  and  no  other  to  be  had  till  the 
last  of  next  week.  It  was  the  later  covenant 
the  church  members  were  renewing,  but  the  old 
covenant  made  by  the  Lord  with  Noah  would 
have  been  far  preferable.  There  was  something 
beautiful  to  look  at  about  that  —  the  seal  of  the 
covenant  —  the  Bow  of  Seven.  As  it  seems,  now, 
there  was  a  blunder  somewhere. 

There  was  nothing  upon  wheels  in  that  church. 
The  shepherd  stayed  by  his  flock  till  his  hair 
silvered,  and  his  deacons  were  as  gray  as  he. 
No  clergyman  was  on  wheels  but  the  Methodist. 


WORKING    "BY  THE  DAY."  121 

Had  the  gauge  been  right,  and  had  there  been 
railroads,  it  would  have  been  convenient  to  have 
casters  attached  to  the  boots  of  the  clergymen 
of  that  faith  and  order,  for  so  they  could  be 
trundled  away  at  will  like  pieces  of  heavy  fur 
niture  ! 

There  was  a  time  when  people  put  on  their 
slippers,  took  a  night-lamp,  bade  each  other  good 
night,  and  went  up  stairs  to  bed.  Those  people 
now  go  to  bed  by  railway.  They  think  nothing 
of  fifty  miles  between  counting-room  and  bed 
room.  They  die  out  of  the  city  every  evening, 
and  are  born  into  it  with  newness  of  life  every 
morning.  It  is  a  good  thing.  They  live  more, 
and  they  live  longer,  if  the  engine  behaves  itself; 
but  when  it  gets  a  notion  to  pass  a  sister  engine 
on  a  single  track,  or  to  try  the  bare  ground,  like 
a  horse  with  his  shoes  off,  that  kicks  up  its  heels 
in  the  pasture,  or  to  climb  aboard  the  train  and 
be  a  passenger  itself,  perhaps  the  bedroom  may 
be  a  few  miles  too  far  away,  and  the  old  geogra 
phy  be  best. 

There  was  a  time  when  we  kept  our  dead 
about  us  ;  in  sight  of  the  church  windows  where 
folks  went  in  the  Sunday  noons  to  eat  their  lun 
cheon,  and  leaned  against  gray  slabs  and  read  the 
dim-lettered  records  of  the  hamlet's  forefathers, 
and  talked  about  the  sermon  and  the  —  crops. 
They  had  observed  that  things  kept  growing  on 


122  THE   WORLD  ON  WHEELS. 

Sundays,  and  they  mentioned  it !  If  not  in  sight 
of  the  church  windows,  then  just  in  the  edge  of 
the  village,  a  pleasant  stroll  after  tea,  where  old 
people  walked  and  looked  grave,  and  young  peo 
ple  sat  and  talked  low,  not  so  much  about  the 
mute  Miltons  or  the  village  Hampdens,  as  an  arti 
cle,  or  so  they  fancied,  situated  somewhere  under 
the  left  half  of  their  jackets  and  bodices.  Now, 
from  "sanitary"  considerations  —  I  think  that  is 
the  word  —  they  have  located  the  cemetery  so  far 
away  that  you  must  buy  a  ticket  to  reach  it. 
When  first  they  began  to  hurry  the  dead  to  the 
grave  at  the  rate  of  thirty  miles  an  hour,  it  did 
give  the  old-time  sense  of  the  proprieties  a  little 
wrench,  but  it  was  not  an  outright  fracture  of 
anything,  and  so  the  proprieties  were  long  ago 
convalescent. 


A  SLANDERER  AND  A    WEA  THER  MAKER.       123 


CHAPTER    XVII. 


A    SLANDERER    AND    A    WEATHER    MAKER. 

THE  Railroad  is  a  slanderer.  It  maligns  cities. 
With  few  exceptions  it  sneaks  into  town  ;  enters 
it  by  the  cheapest  end,  as  politicians  say  of  can 
didates,  the  most  "  available  "  way.  By-the-by,  is 
the  "  available "  aspirant  for  office  always  the 
cheapest  ?  It  comes  in  by  people's  backdoors ; 
it  sees  mops  swinging  like  "  banners  on  the  outer 
wall;"  it  overlooks  hen-houses;  it  flanks  pig 
pens  ;  it  manufactures  dead  ducks  and  gone 
geese  ;  it  commands  barnyards.  Take  La  Porte, 
on  the  Lake  Shore  Railroad  —  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  little  cities  in  the  whole  West,  nothing 
excepted.  Its  streets  are  pictures.  Its  shade  is 
luxuriant.  Its  lakes  are  lovely  as  any  classic 
water  that  ever  inspired  a  poet's  song.  Ask  the 
world  that  flits  by  on  the  Lake  Shore,  and  never 
halts  at  all,  about  La  Porte,  and  it  says,  a  strag 
gling  Hoosier  village,  out  at  the  elbows  and  the 
heels  withal,  fringed  with  shanties,  mopsticks 
and  swill-pails.  And  on  he  plunges  in  his  ig- 


124  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

norance,  knowing  as  little  of  the  Gem  of  the 
Prairie  as  if  he  had  been  born,  like  a  Mam 
moth  Cave  fish,  without  any  eyes  at  all.  The 
Michigan  Central  and  the  Illinois  Central  Roads, 
in  their  approach  to  Chicago,  are  splendid  excep 
tions.  Running  on  the  water  side  and  out  at  sea, 
if  you  please,  they  pass  along  the  city  front, 
with  its  stately  structures,  its  spires  and  towers, 
as  if  it  were  a  magnificent  painting.  By  night, 
when  garlanded  with  lights,  it  is  as  gorgeous  as 
some  Eastern  queen  arrayed  in  all  her  jewels. 

There  are  in  America  at  least  six  hundred  arid 
forty  railroads,  without  counting  the  branches. 
Of  the  latter  there  are  hundreds,  and  it  is  curi 
ous  to  observe  how  certain  trunk  roads  resemble 
trees  in  putting  out  their  branches  and  getting 
their  growth.  Thus  the  iron  arms  of  the  Michi 
gan  Central  spread  like  a  larch,  the  Chicago  & 
Northwestern  like  a  fern,  while  the  Hudson 
River  takes  a  straight  shoot  as  limbless  as  a 
liberty-pole.  We  are  apt  to  crowd  the  rhetoric 
sometimes,  and  say  that  railroads  have  taken 
America,  and  the  continent  is  as  full  of  fibres  of 
iron  as  an  oak  leaf  is  of  fibres  of  wood.  I  saw 
a  letter  the  other  day  written  by  a  Bishop  of 
the  Episcopal  Church  from  his  home  here  in 
America.  That  letter  traveled  a  thousand  miles 
before  it  struck  a  railroad !  His  diocese  is  in 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Company's  country,  and  is  no 


A   SLANDERER  AND  A    WE  A  THER  MAKER.       125 

jtouryard  diocese  either,  for  it  is  larger  than 
many  empires. 

But  the  locomotive  ventures  into  improbable 
places  for  all  that.  Think  of  a  ponderous  en 
gine,  fashioned  to  grind  miles  under  its  wheels 
like  a  grist  in  a  mill,  being  drawn,  as  one  was 
a  short  time  ago,  under  the  Arch  of  Constantino 
at  Rome,  along  the  very  road  whereon  the  robe 
of  Cicero  trailed,  if  he  did  n't  lift  it,  and  the 
weak-eyed  poet  strolled !  Classic  ground  or  Holy 
ground,  it  stands  a  f>oor  chance  with  the  loco 
motive,  for  with  the  steam  comes  the  newsboy, 
the  boot-black,  modern  slang,  irreverence,  and  — 
peanuts. 

No  piece  of  mechanism  has  affected  so  widely, 
diversely  and  powerfully,  the  globe  and  its  in 
habitants,  as  the  locomotive.  That  a  railroad 
should  influence  the  weather  is  the  very  last 
thing  that  would  be  suspected,  but  it  must  plead 
guilty  to  the  charge,  for  in  certain  regions  it  is 
almost  dimatarchic  —  a  presider  over  climate. 
That  being  the  only  hard  word  used,  the  offence 
should  be  easily  forgiven.  Let  some  recording 
angel,  like  Uncle  Toby's,  be  found  to  drop  a 
tear  upon  it,  if  need  be,  and  blot  it  out. 

Everybody  knows  how  the  rains  have  descended 
And  the  floods  come  in  regions  of  the  continent 
and  in  seasons  where  and  when  little  ever  fell 
but  dew.  Number  the  facts  from  Utah  to  Cali- 


126  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

fornia  that  are  being  washed  down  into  human 
understandings  by  heavy  showers.  There  is  no 
danger  of  our  being  claimed  by  Sydney  Smith's 
genuine  Mrs.  Partington,  if  we  say  that  some 
how —  and  we  are  not  bound  to  tell  how  —  the 
railroad  brings  rain.  Would  it  not  be  wonderful 
if  that  brace  of  iron  bars  across  the  continent 
should  literally  interpret  the  pleasant  Scripture, 
"  And  the  desert  shall  blossom  as  the  rose "  ? 
And  it  looks  like  it.  The  old  devices  for  arti 
ficial  irrigation  are  growing  useless,  and  territory 
hitherto  unproductive,  is  beginning  to  do  some 
thing  for  man.  And  this,  not  because  of  the 
pioneers  to  whom  the  railroad  has  made  the 
desert  possible  and  accessible,  but  because  of  its 
direct  influence  upon  the  climate.  Rain- clouds 
west  of  the  Rockies,  that  have  never  spoken  a 
loud  word  within  the  memory  of  man,  are  now 
talking  as  audibly  and  emphatically  as  if  thunder 
had  been  their  mother-tongue  from  babyhood,  and 
rank  vegetation  is  springing  where  nothing  was 
ever  before  sown  but  fire. 

The  vast  system  of  iron  net-work  and  the 
hair-lines  of  telegraphy,  about  enough  to  make  a 
snare  to  catch  the  planet,  have  disturbed  the 
electrical  equilibrium,  and  the  results  are  seen 
in  the  new  and  novel  phenomena  of  thunder  and 
shower.  By  the  way,  did  you  ever  know  any 
part  of  a  train  to  be  struck  by  lightning?  There 


A  SLANDERER  AND  A    WE  A  THER  MAKER.       127 

are  three  or  four  accounts  on  record  of  such  an 
occurrence,  but  the  testimony  is  doubtful  and 
obscure.  Running  in  what  are  generally  deemed 
the  most  dangerous  places,  along  the  tall  fences 
of  telegraph-poles,  so  often  shattered  by  lightning, 
and  throwing  up  such  volumes  of  heat,  smoke 
and  steam,  all  of  which  are  supposed  to  be 
favorite  thoroughfares  of  the  mysterious  agent,  it 
seems  strange  that,  if  our  scientific  facts  are  facts 
at  all,  many  accidents  by  lightning  do  not  occur 
upon  the  railway.  But  the  direction  of  the  bolt 
is  determined  before  it  leaves  the  cloud,  and  a 
train  is  nothing  but  a  slender  thread  trailed  along 
the  earth's  surface.  What  the  locomotive  will 
yet  do  for  all  kinds  of  man — mechanic,  agricul 
tural,  scientific,  moral  —  is  an  unsolved  problem! 
A  glance  at  the  initial  chapter  of  its  history 
assures  us  that  it  will  be  as  marvelous  in  the 
future  as  it  was  unlocked  for  in  the  past. 


128  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 


DREAMING     ON     THE     CAKS. 

WHEN  a  man  travels,  what  material  baggage 
he  takes  is  immaterial,  but  he  leaves  behind  him 
a  great  deal  of  mental  and  moral  impedimenta. 
There  used  to  be  a  saying  among  the  traders  to 
Santa  F£,  "If  there  is  any  dog  in  a  man  he 
will  show  it  out  on  the  trail."  During  the  war, 
people  going  to  the  front  were  astonished  to  learn 
what  manner  of  people  some  of  their  nearest 
neighbors  really  were.  It  is  so  in  the  world  on 
wheels.  Men  and  women  show  out  wonderfully. 
But  whatever  you  put  on  to  go  a-journeying, 
even  to  that  new  silk  hat,  if  you  must,  never 
put  on  airs.  They  are  altogether  too  gauzy  to 
be  warm  in  winter,  or  decent  in  summer.  Many 
a  woman  has  told  you,  without  intending  it, 
that  the  entertainment  she  regarded  with  such 
measureless  contempt  is  better  than  anything  she 
ever  encountered  at  home.  Clothes  have  become 
transparent  as  window-glass.  They  utterly  fail 
as  a  disguise. 


DREAMING  ON  THE  CARS.  129 

You  grow  conscious  on  a  railway  train,  as  no 
where  else,  what  trifles  go  to  make  up  the  warp 
and  woof  of  life.  Thus,  you  catch  yourself 
watching  an  old-fashioned  man  with  an  ancient 
hat  that  was  beaver  in  its  time.  He  takes  it 
off  and  holds  it  in  his  hand.  You  wonder  how 
it  has  come  to  look  so  like  its  owner.  It  has  a 
character,  and  the  character  is  the  man's.  Then 
the  heavy  roll  of  his  coat-collar,  with  a  padded 
look,  reminds  you  of  the  picture  of  George  the 
First,  the  Last,  and  the  All-the-Time,  to-wit : 
George  Washington.  You  think  G.  W.'s  face  is 
much  like  a  tin  lantern  with  no  holes  in  it  to  let 
out  the  light,  and  about  as  —  is  it  profanity,  or 
what  is  it?  —  about  as  stupid  a  face  as  there  is 
going.  To  be  sure,  it  has  a  solid  look,  and  so 
has  a  round  of  beef. 

You  look  up  just  then,  and,  yonder  in  the 
corner  facing  you,  sits  a  man  of  sixty,  frosty, 
Octoberish,  square  face,  double  chin,  hair  long 
and  curly,  pleasant  eyes,  all  surmounted  by  a 
broad-brimmed  hat.  You  start  at  the  resem 
blance  ;  it  is  as  much  like  Benjamin  Franklin, 
printer,  as  one  picture  is  like  another. 

Then  you  wonder  what  that  lady  over  across 
the  aisle  is  trying  to  get  out  of  that  bottle  with 
a  knitting  -  needle.  You  watch,  and  she  spears 
away  until  she  brings  out  a  little  pickle.  You 
notice  a  couple  whispering  and  giggling,  and 

17 


130  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS, 

making  objects  of  themselves  generally,  and  you 
marvel  why,  when  young  married  people  travel 
in  the  cars  by  sunlight,  they  don't  let  the  honey 
moon  set,  or  change,  or  something. 

The  train  stops  at  a  station  among  the  pinea 
—  you  are  on  a  Wisconsin  road  —  and  little  girls 
come  to  your  window  with  small  clusters  of 
wintergreen  berries,  set  off  with  a  few  glossy 
leaves.  You  buy  a  fresh  woodsy  taste  of  spring, 
and  then  follow  the  girls  away  to  their  humble 
homes  among  the  sand-hills,  and  fancy  how  they 
live  and  what  they  hope. 

The  train  halts  at  a  station  in  Maryland — you 
are  on  the  train  from  Washington  to  New  York— 
and  dusky  boys  and  maidens,  born  on  the  shady 
side  of  humanity,  swarm  around  with  neat  little 
paper-boxes,  with  a  layer  of  fried  oysters  looking 
as  light  and  frisky  as  your  grandmother's  fritters. 
The  ivory  smiles  are  very  pleasant  to  see,  and 
before  you  know  it  you  are  humming  "  Way 
down  in  Alabama,"  and  sorrowing  that  some  of 
the  sweetest  melodies  in  the  world  since  the 
daughters  of  Judah  hung  their  harps  on  the 
willows,  should  have  dropped  out  of  fashion  like 
lead  down  a  shot  -  tower,  and  wondering  what 
poet,  what  historian,  will  yet  preserve  the  legends 
and  songs  of  the  days  of  the  Old  Plantation. 
Then  you  wander  away  to  Holy  Land,  and  con 
sider  what  punishment  should  be  meted  out  to 


DREAMING  ON  THE  CARS,  131 

the  man  who  has  just  been  telling  us  — and 
wants  to  be  thanked  for  it! — that  the  trees  those 
Jewish  Girls  hung  their  harps  on  —  those  sweet- 
voiced  girls,  with  the  blue-black  hair — were  not 
willows  at  all,  but  poplars!  Old-fashioned  peo 
ple  call  them  •"  popples."  Fancy  a  singer  hang 
ing  her  harp  on  a  popple  !  Then,  there  is  now 
and  then  a  lady  who  has  a  sort  of  petroleum- 
fortune  refinement,  who  speaks  of  a  poplar-tree 
as  a  "  popular,"  much  as  if  she  should  fancy 
that  engineer  is  a  sort  of  corruption  of  indianeer. 
All  these  things  are  dreadful,  but  a  popple-hung 
harp  is  worse. 

The  train  pulls  up  at  a  station  in  Virginia, 
and  a  barefoot  girl  approaches  you  with  flowers 
to  sell  —  fragrant  Magnolias,  and  the  most  grace 
ful  and  grateful  offering  of  all,  and  you  fall  to 
thinking  if  anything  so  beautiful  will  ever  be 
named  after  you,  as  this  magnolia  was,  after  that 
Professor  Magnol.  Happy  Magnol !  The  flowers 
should  grace  his  tablet  in  the  fairest  of  white 
marble.  Now  you  pass  through  the  apple  region 
of  New  York,  and  the  chestnut  woods  of  Ohio. 
You  know  both,  by  the  swarms  of  small  Buck 
eyes  bearing  chestnuts,  and  the  bits  of  Excelsiors 
loaded  with  Greenings  and  Baldwins. 

Then  you  fall  to  watching  the  man  with  the 
new  silk  hat.  Every  body  does.  It  is  not  an 
irritated  hat,  for  it  shines  like  a  bottle.  He 


132  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

bought  it  yesterday,  and  is  going  a  thousand 
miles  immediately.  The  head  seems  to  have  been 
made  just  to  have  some  handy  place  to  put  the 
hat.  That  hat  thus  put  comes  into  the  car.  Its 
support  is  seated,  carefully  applies  a  thumb  and 
finger  to  both  sides  of  the  brim,  and  lifts  it  per 
pendicularly  off,  much  as  if  his  ears  ran  up  into 
the  top  of  it,  and  he  would  lift  it  away  with 
out  touching  their  tips.  He  looks  at  it.  It 
caught  a  little  bump  as  he  entered  the  car,  and 
there  is  the  mark.  He  smooths  it  with  a  finger 
in  a  sorrowful  way,  reaches  up,  and  puts  it  in 
the  rack  croivn  down.  Then  he  settles  to  the 
journey,  thinks  again,  elongates,  and  puts  that 
hat  brim  down.  This  satisfies  him. 

In  a  few  minutes  he  rises,  gives  that  castor 
another  turn,  as  if  it  were  a  kaleidoscope  and 
he  bound  to  have  one  peep  more,  and  deposits 
it  upon  its  side.  At  the  instant  he  is  about  to 
let  go  of  it  the  car  gives  a  frolicsome  lurch, 
and  that  hat  catches  a  jam.  He  withdraws  it 
tenderly,  and  there  is  the  scar.  It  looks  like  the 
kick  of  a  vicious  horse,  but  it  is  the  work  of  an 
ass  to  wear  such  a  thing  on  a  journey.  What 
sort  of  a  figure  would  Moses  have  cut  with  a 
silk  hat,  in  the  last  years  —  say  the  thirty-eighth 
of  them  —  of  his  Wilderness  wanderings  ?  Well, 
the  man  whips  out  his  handkerchief,  and  allays 
the  irritation  of  the  angry  hat.  He  applies  his 


DREAMING  ON  THE  CARS.  133 

tongue  to  it  as  if  for  some  healing  quality,  claps 
it  upon  his  head,  and,  wearied  with  physical 
exertion  and  mental  anxiety,  falls  asleep.  He  is 
not  Jupiter,  but  he  resembles  him,  for  he  "nods," 
and  that  unhappy  tile  tumbles,  strikes  the  back 
of  the  seat  with  the  thrum  of  a  feeble  tambou 
rine,  and  bounds  sepulchrally  along  the  floor.  A 
man  puts  his  foot  upon  it  in  his  haste  to  be 
neighborly,  and  "when  the  man  with  it"  recov 
ers  the  unlucky  bit  of  head-gear,  it  looks  like 
a  short-joint  of  stove  pipe  that  somebody  has 
wildly  hammered  and  wickedly  sworn  at  because 
it  would  neither  go  inside  nor  outside.  But  the 
man  with  the  new  silk  hat  never  falters.  He 
carries  a  head  to  put  the  hat  on.  He  carries  a 
hat-box  to  put  the  hat  in.  He  makes  a  right 
angle  of  himself,  and  sets  his  hat  right  side 
down  upon  his  lap,  as  if  about  to  play  an  end 
less  game  of  "  pin."  You  saw  him  yesterday. 
There  is  "  an  eternal  fitness  in  things,"  even  in 
fiats. 

They  used  to  tell  —  in  old  times  more  than 
j!OW  —  of  "presenting  the  freedom"  of  this  and 
that,  London  or  Amsterdam,  or  what  not,  to 
(Somebody  "  in  a  gold  box."  That  is  not  the 
ceremony  in  later  days.  They  present  you  "  the 
freedom"  of  the  world  on  wheels,  if  you  can  pay 
for  the  ticket.  On  a  California-bound  train  you 
met  a  lady.  Not  to  indulge  in  any  pleasant 


134  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

euphemism,  she  was  a  half  century  old,  but  then 
she  was  strong  and  womanly,  and  apparently  no 
nearer  death  than  when  she  was  handed  about 
in  long-clothes.  She  was  the  mother  of  men. 
She  was  the  wife  of  an  English  physician  and 
botanist ;  I  should  say  "  scientist,"  but  if  there 
is  a  mean  word  in  the  language,  it  is  that  same 
"  scientist."  It  reminds  ine  of  nothing  but  a 
thin,  offensive  bug,  that  has  been  subjected  to 
the  pressure  of  a  vindictive  thumb-nail.  She  was 
unattended.  She  had  a  ticket  that  shut  over  and 
over  like  a  Japanese  book.  It  was  good  from 
London  to  —  New  Zealand !  Across  two  oceans, 
Atlantic  and  Pacific ;  across  the  American  con 
tinent.  She  was  bound  home.  She  ate  straw  < 
berries,  she  said,  with  her  husband  and  "  the 
boys,"  just  before  she  left  New  Zealand.  She 
ate  strawberries  with  her  sister  at  the  parting 
meal  in  London ;  and,  as  she  smilingly  added, 
"  I  shall  be  in  time  for  strawberries  and  cream 
at  San  Francisco." 

No  more  nervous  anxiety  about  the  lady  borne 
on  wheels  around  the  globe,  than  if  she  had 
been  walking  under  the  palms  in  her  Australasian 
home.  You  could  not  help  thinking,  as  you 
regarded  her  pleasant  face,  of  the  Malay  of  the 
old  Geography  dressed  in  a  towel,  amidst  a  far 
away  and  inaccessible  scene  of  tropic  luxuriance, 
only  to  be  found  after  months  of  tossing  by  sea 


DREAMING  ON  THE  CARS.  135 

and  perils  by  land,  of  cannibals  and  beasts  of 
prey ;  and  here  she  was,  going  directly  there  to 
her  charming  English  home  in  the  South  Pacific 
seas,  with  that  crown -jewel  of  the  firmament, 
the  Southern  Cross,  in  sight.  How  pitifully 
shriveled,  like  a  last  year's  filbert,  is  Tom 
Moore's  little  song  about  the  Irish  Norah,  who 
went  on  foot  and  alone  around  the  Emerald 
Isle  unharmed  — 

"  On  she  went,  and  her  maiden  smile 
In  safety  lighted  her  round  the  Green  Isle" — 

beside  the  tremendous  arc  of  circumnavigation 
the  Doctor's  wife  was  describing  without  a 
flutter ! 

So  all  these  trifles  beguile  the  way,  keep  the 
mental  watch  from  running  down  in  your  pocket, 
until  the  brakeman  earns  his  supper  by  telling 
you  where  you  can  earn  yours,  as  he  shouts 
through  the  car,  "Twenty  minutes  for  supper!" 


136  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 


"MEET     ME     BY     MOONLIGHT." 

THERE  were  two  steamers  on  Lake  Erie  that 
were  twins.  They  were,  in  their  time,  and  not  so 
long  ago,  models  of  steamboat  architecture  ;  ele 
gant  as  palaces,  and  in  every  respect  as  nearly 
alike  as  builders  and  artists  could  make  them. 
Their  names  were  Northern  Indiana  and  Southern 
Michigan.  The  writer  and  "his  next  best  friend" 
took  passage  upon  one  of  them  bound  East.  It 
was  a  mid-summer  night.  The  moon  at  the  full, 
and  her  ladyship  did  what  all  poets,  since  moons 
and  poets  were,  have  said  she  did  —  made  day, 
"only  a  little  paler"  and  lovelier,  and  what  not. 
The  steamer  was  running  her  sister's  trip,  that 
sister  having  met  with  an  accident.  The  damage 
being  repaired,  it  was  proposed  that,  when  the 
twins  met  on  this  voyage,  the  passengers  should 
be  transferred  from  each  to  the  other,  the  sisters 
wheel  about  and  retrace  the  wake  they  had  just 
made,  and  so  the  advertised  trips  for  the  sea 
son  would  come  all  true  again. 


"MEET  ME  BY  MOONLIGHTS  137 

The  sea  was  as  nearly  a  sea  of  glass  as  it 
ever  is.  The  moon  rode  high  in  the  heavens. 
It  was  just  midnight  when  we  saw  the  sister 
coming,  decked  with  white  and  colored  lights 
alow  and  aloft,  like  a  queen  of  "  the  barbaric 
East"  in  all  her  jewelry.  The  lights  from  two 
stories  of  windows  streamed  out  upon  the  air. 
The  music  of  the  band  was  heard.  It  looked 
like  a  city  adrift,  and  beautiful  and  airy  as  a 
dream.  Our  deck  was  thronged  with  passengers, 
who  saw  themselves  in  the  approaching  appari 
tion  as  others  saw  them.  They  were  looking 
upon  the  steamer's  counterpart  and  double. 

The  two  neared  each  other,  came  alongside  in 
the  middle  of  the  sea,  the  planks  were  put  out 
fore  and  aft,  and  the  transfer  of  passengers  and 
baggage  began.  There  were  two  steady  currents 
of  human  life  meeting  and  passing  on  the  gang 
way.  Age,  youth,  beauty,  fashion,  wealth,  pov 
erty.  Bright  lamps  shone  all  around,  and  the 
moon  over  all.  People  looked  in  each  other's 
eyes,  glanced  at  each  other's  faces,  as  they  met 
for  an  instant,  sometimes  gravely,  sometimes 
with  a  smile,  that  nevermore  in  all  this  world 
-would  meet  again.  Now  and  then  a  pleasant 
word  was  uttered  between  strangers,  but  gener 
ally  the  two  processions  were  silent,  almost 
thoughtful.  It  was  a  scene  at  once  beautiful  and 
impressive.  The  occupants  of  State  Room  B  in 

18* 


138  THE   WORLD    ON  WHEELS. 

the  Northern  Indiana  found  themselves  occupants 
of  B  again  in  the  Southern  Michigan.  The  pas 
sengers  in  the  upper  cabin  of  the  one  found  all 
unchanged  in  the  upper  cabin  of  the  other. 
"  The  places  that  once  knew  them  should  know 
them  no  more  forever."  The  transfer  was  effect 
ed  with  less  confusion  than  in  a  congregation 
leaving  a  church.  The  bells  rang  a  parting 
chime.  The  steamers  wheeled,  each  upon  her 
own  route o  We  had  died  out  of  one  world  into 
another.  It  was  a  picture  of  life  and  of  death 
on  the  moonlit  sea.  Such  as  it  was,  can  I  ever 
forget  it? 

The  memory  of  the  first  steamer  you  ever  saw 
comes  dimly  out,  like  a  smoky  old  picture.  Let 
us  say  it  was  the  steamer  Nile,  with  a  bronze-faced 
old  sea-dog  for  captain ;  the  steamer  Nile,  with 
two  gold  crocodiles  on  the  bow  for  a  figure-head; 
the  steamer  Nile  at  her  dock  in  Buffalo,  and 
"  up "  for  the  City  of  the  Straits.  The  rush  of 
crowds  and  steam,  the  farm- wagons  laden  with 
household  gods  and  goods  that  were  backed  over 
the  broad  gangway ;  the  shy  country  horses  that 
were  pulled  and  pushed  aboard ;  the  Mrs.  John 
Rogerses,  "  carrying  one  for  every  ten "  by  the 
old  rule  of  addition ;  the  score  of  sheep,  fright 
ened  out  of  their  little  wits,  huddled  together 
forward ;  the  sailors  coiling  lines  and  chains ;  the 
close,  dim  cabins  lined  with  berths;  "the  walking- 


"MEET  ME  BY  MOONLIGHT."  139 

beam7'  working  slowly  up  and  down;  the  faint, 
hot  smell  of  steam  and  oil ;  the  wheezy  way 
with  the  machinery ;  the  little  leaks  of  steam 
and  water  here  and  there  that  snuffed  and  hissed, 
above  and  below,  as  if  everything  about  the  craft 
were  alive  and  generally  uneasy. 

Then  came  the  clang  of  the  bell  and  the 
voice  of  the  first  mate,  "  All  ashore  that 's  go 
ing!"  The  captain  in  position  on  the  hurricane 
deck ;  a  tinkle  of  bells  in  the  engine-room ;  the 
rasp  of  the  lines  the  sailors  pull  in  with  a  will ; 
a  general  jail  delivery  of  steam ;  leviathan  moves ; 
she  is  off ;  the  flags  unroll  to  the  wind ;  the 
band  on  deck  strikes  up  "  Charley  over  the 
Water ;"  the  great  crowd  of  men  and  women 
and  horses  and  drays  upon  the  desck  gets  the 
size  of  a  swarm  of  bees  on  an  apple-tree  limb ; 
then  a  mere  handful  of  hornets ;  then  out  of 
sight.  Every  time  the  wheels  come  about,  the 
boat  shakes  as  Csesar  shook  with  that  Spanish 
fever  of  his,  when  he  called  Titinius ;  up  stairs 
and  down  stairs  an  incessant  rumbling  and  tum 
bling  that  make  things  jingle.  You  are  fairly 
at  sea ;  the  air  is  fresh  and  clear,  as  if  just 
made.  The  Nile  was  a  grand  affair  in  her  day, 
but  as  Egyptian  as  the  New  York  Tombs.  She 
laid  her  bones  on  the  Michigan  beach  one  ter 
rible  night ;  and  her  old  commander,  ill  ashore, 
lived  just  long  enough  to  hear  of  it. 


140  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

Who  were  aboard?  Elder  Alfred  Bennett,  for 
one — not  Reverend,  nor  yet  New  Jersey  Bishop 
— but  Elder  Bennett,  with  a  head  like  Hum- 
boldt's,  and  holding  more  of  celestial  geography 
than  the  great  Baron  knew  of  earthly  —  a  lion 
of  the  tribe  of  Judah.  Of  all  titles  for  Baptist 
clergymen,  "minister"  seems  to  me  the  simplest 
and  most  suggestive.  It  associates  them  with  uthe 
ministering  spirits  "  of  whom  we  read,  and  whom 
we  believe  in.  Take  a  young  fellow  from  Ham 
ilton  or  Rochester,  who  never  tarried  six  weeks 
at  Jericho,  and  call  him  Elder,  as  his  country 
brethren  and  sisters  always  will,  and  there  is  an 
amusing  incongruity  about  it,  as  if  the  old  prov 
erb,  "the  child  is  father  of  the  man,"  had  come 
literally  true,  and  the  downy  Elder's  father  were 
a  little  boy  somewhere,  about  big  enough  to  fig 
ure  in  the  Millennial  group  of  the  leopard  and 
the  lamb. 

Father  Bennett  was  bound  for  Michigan.  He 
would  see  that  accomplished  Christian  gentleman, 
Dr.  Comstock.  He  would  see  that  noble  preacher 
and  large-hearted  man,  Rev.  John  I.  Fulton ;  he 
would  see  Elder  Powell,  one  of  the  Thirteen  who 
gave  a  dollar  apiece,  and  so  founded  Madison 
University.  He  would  return  to  Utica,  and  meet 
that  admirable  Editor,  Dr.  A.  M.  Beebee,  of  the 
New  York  "Baptist  Register;"  in  youth,  office- 
mate  with  Washington  Irving,  the  man  of  Sunny- 


" MEET  ME  BY  MOONLIGHT."  141 

side ;  in  manhood,  the  thorough,  consistent,  able 
Christian  editor.  He  would  consult  with  Dr. 
Nathaniel  Kendrick,  that  giant  in  the  churches; 
with  Professor  Hascall,  who  took  Madison  Univer 
sity  into  an  upper  chamber,  as  the  disciples  gath 
ered,  and  kept  it  till  its  name  was  strong  enough 
to  go  abroad,  and  was  worked  for  and  prayed  for 
all  at  once,  as  the  "  Ham.  Lit.  and  Theo.  Sem." 
Elders  Card  and  Cook  would  come  down  to  meet 
him  from  the  North  Woods ;  Elders  Galusha  and 
Moore  and  Hartshorn  from  the  West.  They 
would  all  attend  some  Association  together,  and 
Elder  John  Peck,  as  clean-hearted  as  an  angel, 
always  had  a  word  to  say.  He  was  one  of  the 
great  noble  provocatives  to  good  works,  and  had 
he  never  achieved  anything  himself  but  that, 
the  "  well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant ! " 
would  have  been  the  verdict.  But  Elder  Peck 
never  could  say  "Association."  You  can  shut 
your  eyes  and  hear  him :  "  the  brethren  of  the 
As-so-sa-shun  will  please  to  give  their  attention." 
All  these  —  Elder  Powell,  perhaps,  excepted  — 
have  gone  away  to  the  Great  Convention  of  the 
church  triumphant. 

Are  people's  memories  getting  shorter  ?  Does 
anybody  remember  how  Dr.  Kendrick  used  to 
begin  one  of  his  old  heart-of-oak  sermons  ?  How 
he  towered  up  behind  the  low  pulpit,  like  a 
Lombardy  poplar  behind  a  fence  ?  How  that  two- 


142  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

story  head  of  his  reminded  you  of  the  portrait 
of  Obeiiin !  The  first  words  came  slowly  and 
ponderously.  Those  silver-rimmed  spectacles  shone 
around  his  eyes.  He  laid  out  his  work  by  the 
day,  and  not  by  the  job.  He  told  you  of  "  the 
damning  demerit  of  sin."  He  climbed  rugged 
Sinai  like  a  stout  mountaineer.  By-and-by  away 
went  the  spectacles.  He  warmed  and  softened 
to  the  work.  His  words  came  fast.  He  descend 
ed  Sinai  and  went  away  to  Gethsemane.  And 
when  he  was  through,  and  occasionally  it  took 
him  a  long  time,  you  felt  that  you  had  heard 
a  man  of  remarkable  power,  who  had  yet  a  store 
of  it  in  reserve  —  a  man  who  could  handle  the 
doctrinal  sledge  with  one  hand,  and  never  strain 
a  muscle. 

Dr.  Kendrick,  like  many  of  that  class  of  old 
divines  —  as  witness  Dr.  Backus,  of  Hamilton 
College  — had  a  world  of  ready  wit,  that  flashed 
out  unexpectedly  from  the  soberest  of  mouths. 
One  day  of  the  dead  days,  the  Doctor  was  con- 
'ducting  a  class  in  Moral  Philosophy,  and  he 
asked  a  student  if  a  man  could  tell  a  lie  to  a 
brute.  The  student  thought  not,  and  so  put  hi& 
foot  in  it  and  said  "  not."  "  Once,"  said  the 
Doctor,  in  his  deliberate  way,  "  I  visited  a  min 
istering  brother  in  the  western  part  of  this  State. 
In  the  morning  he  took  a  halter,  and  went  into 
the  pasture  to  catch  his  horse.  He  hollowed  an 


"MEET  ME  BY  MOONLIGHT?'  143 

empty  hand  and  extended  it.  The  horse  pricked 
up  his  ears  at  the  prospect,  came  up,  thrust  his 
nose  into  the  barren  hand  and  was  captured. 
Some  time  after,  I  was  called  to  sit  in  council 
in  that  same  region.  The  minister  alluded  to 
stood  charged  with  having  made  misrepresenta 
tions  to  his  fellow-men.  I  am  sorry  to  say  the 
allegations  were  proved  true.  /  had  seen  him 
practice  deception  upon  a  quadruped.  They  had 
heard  him  tell  a  falsehood  to  a  biped.  Now," 
added  the  Doctor,  "  were  the  two  acts  alike,  or 
did  the  hind  legs  of  the  quadruped  kick  out  the 
brains  of  the  intent?"  The  class  laughed,  but 
the  student  did  n't  say  ! 


144  THE   WORLD   ON   WHEELS. 


CHAPTER  XX. 


THE    MAKER    OF    CITIES. 

No  matter  how  carefully  you  freight  a  train, 
there  is  always  something  gets  on  board  that 
never  appears  on  the  bill  of  lading.  Day  after 
day  you  see  Alexandrine  caravans  pounding  away 
to  Iowa,  burdened  with  Michigan  forests  that 
sawmills  have  laughed  over  in  their  rough,  coarse 
way.  It  is  called  lumber,  but  it  is  a  county 
capital,  a  whole  village,  a  happy  home.  Score 
out  with  the  double  bars  of  the  railroad  a  broad 
page  of  the  open  book  of  the  fertile  wilderness, 
sink  a  well  somewhere  that  the  engine  can  halt 
to  drink,  and  a  shanty,  weather-beaten  as  a  wasp's 
nest,  will  come  down  in  a  few  days  over  the  roll 
of  the  prairie,  and  treat  itself  to  some  new  clap 
boards  and  a  coat  of  paint  white  as  a  sepulchre, 
and  there  it  will  stand  close  beside  the  track  to 
see  the  cars  go  by. 

Soon,  another  will  creep  up  from  the  bushy  run 
and  range  itself  alongside,  and  ten  to  one  that  it 
will  shout  at  you  in  monstrous  pica  lettered  along 


THE   MAKER   OF  CITIES.  145 

its  whole  front,  METROPOLITAN  HOTEL  !  You 
have  always  observed  that  the  smaller  the  inn 
the  bigger  the  title,  much  after  the  fashion  of 
the  naturalists  who  "call  names,"  and  denomi 
nate  a  harmless  little  chimney-swallow  an  Hir- 
undo  Pelasgia !  Then  more  houses,  a  church  with 
a  chuckle-headed  belfry,  a  school-house,  a-  store, 
all  white  as  this  week's  washing.  Then  one 
money -purse  of  a  mail-bag  will  be  thrown  off 
from  a  passing  train  upon  the  depot  platform,  and 
another  handed  on  as  easily  as  a  woman's  work- 
pocket. 

The  village  is  christened  Athens,  it  has  a 
P.M.,  and  wrhen  a  little  village  grows  to  have 
a  P.M.,  it  is  getting  pretty  well  along  towards 
A.M.  Day  has  fairly  broke.  Untilled  breadths 
of  prairie  round  about  begin  to  show  scars.  The 
plow  is  busy.  They  set  out  trees,  and  settle  a 
minister  and  hire  a  schoolma'am.  They  fit  up  a 
hall  over  a  store,  and  call  it  Apollo.  A  man 
comes  along  with  a  composing-stick  in  his  pocket 
and  starts  a  newspaper.  It  is  the  Clarion.  The 
editor  thanks  one  man  for  a  pumpkin  and  mea 
sures  it.  He  confesses  to  a  turkey  and  acknowl 
edges  the  corn.  He  says  he  is  amazed  at  the 
great  West.  A  young  lawyer  gets  off  the  cars, 
and  immediately  another.  A  solitary  lawyer  is 
useless.  What  would  Robinson  Crusoe  have  done 
had  he  been  an  attorney?  His  story  would  have 

19 


146  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

been  brief,  and  no  red  tape  to  tie  it  with.  No, 
a  couple  of  lawyers  are  like  two  halves  of  a  pair 
of  shears.  You  need  them  both  for  the  cutting 
purposes  of  the  legal  instrument.  Two  doctors 
are  there  already.  Then  an  artist  arrives  with 
his  house  on  wheels,  and  backs  it  upon  a  vacant 
lot  next  to  the  "  Metropolitan/'  and  there  it  is, 
with  a  monstrous  lobster  -  like  eye  in  the  top, 
and  the  girls  and  their  "  fellows "  come  in  from 
around  about  to  be  taken  —  come  in  their  best ; 
great  healthy  girls,  wearing  three  or  four  dresses 
apiece,  each  shorter  than  the  other,  and  all 
flounced,  or  fluted,  or  something. 

The  railway  has  brought  the  fashions.  It  also 
brought  that  Chinese  abomination,  a  gong.  The 
"  Metropolitan"  has  one,  and  it  frightened  an 
innocent  man  into  running  away  with  a  span  of 
horses,  and  they  never  got  him.  It  also  threw 
a  feeble  woman  into  convulsions  who  had  been 
reading  Gordon's  Adventures  in  Africa — not  the 
"lord"  of  that  ilk.  She  either  thought  it  was 
a  lion  or  she  was  in  Africa,  but  she  never  ex 
plained.  The  rival  hotel,  called  "The  Orient," 
because  it  is  located  in  the  Occident,  and  com 
pleted  yesterday,  has  not  attained  to  gongs.  It 
only  rings  a  bell. 

A  barber  arrives.  His  fathers,  some  of  them, 
were  from  the  coast  of  Guinea.  He  is  table- 
waiter  at  the  Metropolitan.  Likewise  an  artist 


THE  MAKER   OF  CITIES.  147 

on  leather,  with  dramatic  tendencies,  for  he 
strikes  aji  attitude  and  cries,  "  What  boots  it!" 
and  then  laughs  like  a  general  alarm  in  a  poul 
try-yard.  He  is  ostler  at  the  Metropolitan ,  also 
porter.  He  punishes  a  fiddle  for  the  dancers  at 
the  Apollo.  He  shaves. 

The  Methodists  came  first.  They  have  a  choir 
with  a  pitch-pipe  to  it.  Next  the  Baptists,  with 
a  melodeon.  They  both  will  try  for  an  organ 
next  year.  THE  EXAMINER  has  a  club  bigger 
than  can  be  cut  anywhere  within  four  miles  of 
Athens. 

And  this  Athens  is  as  much  the  product  of 
the  locomotive  as  a  puff  of  steam.  It  made  things 
possible.  The  next  thing  the  prince  of  modern 
genii  does,  is  to  bolt  the  track  without  tumbling 
into  the  ditch.  It  goes  across -lots  to  some 
sleepy  little  ante-railroad  Corners,  that  was  the 
county-seat  aforetime,  and  trails  the  Court-house, 
by  a  figure  of  speech,  back  to  Athens,  and  it 
becomes  the  Capital !  All  the  boys  are  aching 
to  do  something  whereby  they  may  get  into  the 
new  jail.  At  last  the  Sheriff  catches  a  rogue 
and  locks  him  up,  and  the  boys  are  satisfied. 
The  thin  lawyer  with  the  thin  tin  sign  becomes 
Judge,  and  also  fatter.  It  was  a  graveyard  they 
had  over  at  the  Corners,  a  straggling  place  where 
people  lay  down  wherever  they  pleased,  and  no 
body  said  a  word.  Things  are  not  thus  in 


148  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

Athens.  They  have  laid  out  a  —  cemetery,  with 
some  pretension  to  beauty,  and  have  traced  it 
off  with  paths  and  avenues  like  the  lines  upon 
the  palm  of  a  hand.  They  also  have  a  hearse. 
So  has  the  Corners,  but  then  Athens  has  plumes, 
when  people  die  that  can  •  afford  it. 

There  are  a  briskness  of  step  and  a  precision 
of  speech  about  the  people  of  a  railway  creation 
that  you  never  find  in  a  town  that  is  only  ac 
cessible  to  a  stage-driver,  and  where  they  go 
sauntering  about  like  a  Connecticut  one-horse 
chaise.  There  it  is  always  three  o'clock  till  it 
is  four.  In  Athens  never.  From  the  depot  with 
its  time-table  to  the  dusky  factotum  of  the 
"  Metropolitan,"  everybody  carries  a  watch.  He 
compares  it  with  the  standard  at  the  depot  once 
a  day.  He  consults  it  upon  all  possible  occa 
sions.  If  you  begin  to  preach,  he  times  you 
from  the  text.  If  you  marry  him  to  somebody, 
he  whips  out  his  repeater,  and  sees  just  how 
long  you  were  about  it.  The  second-hand,  so 
useless  in  a  lazy  old  town,  is  magnified  in  im 
portance  to  a  crowbar.  You  ask  him  the  time, 
and  he  tells  you  "  Number  Six,  due  here  at  two 
o'clock  and  one  minute,  has  just  gone.  I  'm 
thirty  seconds  slow.  It 's  two  o'clock  and  four 
minutes  ! "  And  there  you  have  the  time  almost 
accurate  enough  for  an  astronomer.  The  loco 
motive  is  an  accomplished  educator.  It  teaches 


THE  MAKER   OF  CITIES.  149 

everybody  that  virtue  of  princes  we  call  punc 
tuality.  Ic  waits  for  nobody.  It  demonstrates 
what  a  useful  creature  a  minute  is  in  the  econ* 
omy  of  things. 

The  West  is  full  of  Athenses  that  were.  They 
have  grown  greater  and  better.  They  star  the 
prairies  as  constellations  the  heavens.  They  have 
grown  more  modest  and  less  pretentious  with 
time.  Villages,  like  girls,  have  "  a  hateful  age." 
There  is  a  period,  too,  in  the  life  of  villages, 
when  they  resemble  that  red-nightcapped  carpen 
ter,  the  woodpecker  —  they  are  biggest  when  first 
hatched. 


150  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 


A     CABOOSE     RIDE. 

HAS  it  ever  happened  to  you  to  be  left  some 
where,  and  nothing  to  get  away  upon  but  a 
freight  train  ?  And  did  the  train  happen  to  be 
running  on  an  Express  train's  time,  and  did  you 
make  the  flitting  in  the  night?  If  "  yes,"  you 
remember  it.  The  writer  was  at  Friendship,  in 
the  State  of  New  York.  It  adjoins  the  town  of 
Amity,  whose  post-office  ought  to  be  Fraternity. 
What  a  dreadful  thing  this  "calling  names"  has 
become !  Down  that  same  Erie  Road  is  Scio, 
and  not  a  man  of  them  can  tell  where  Homer 
was  buried.  Then  we  have  Cuba  and  Castile, 
and  nothing  Spanish  or  Castilian  in  either  of 
them,  except  the  Castile  soap  at  the  druggist's. 
Avon,  without  Shakspeare ;  Caledonia,  and  no 
body  to  bless  the  Duke  of  Argyle  for  a  scratch- 
ing-post;  Warsaw,  that  Campbell  does  not  sing 
of  in  his  "  Pleasures  of  Hope  ; "  Ararat,  and  no 
sign  of  Noah's  ark ;  Waterloo,  that  Bonaparte 


A    CABOOSE  RIDE,  151 

never  lost ;  Cato,  Ovid,  Camillus,  Marcellus,  and 
all  the  rest  of  them. 

To  return  to  the  freight  train :  You  climb 
aboard,  and  entering  the  caboose  sit  down  before 
you  mean  to,  the  thing  giving  a  plunge  just 
before  you  are  ready.  Four  or  five  men  are  dis 
posed  about  the  car.  They  are  drovers.  You 
think  you  have  blundered  into  a  barnyard.  Those 
men  have  their  outdoor  voices  with  them.  Their 
frequent  conversations  with  herds  have  made 
them  boisterous  and  breezy  as  the  month  of 
March.  The  society  of  cattle  is  not  always  re 
fining,  especially  of  cattle  to  kill.  You  do  n'^ 
see  anybody  reading  poetry.  The  stove  burns 
wood,  and  not  coal,  but  the  oar  is  smutOy  for 
all  that.  They  use  many  good  words,  but  they 
do  n't  seem  to  understand  the  arrangement  of 
them.  You  begin  to  be  sorry  you  did  not  tarry 
at  Jericho  for  the  passenger  train.  But  these 
men  are  kind-hearted.  One  of  them  moves  along 
and  lets  you  sit  within  six  inches  of  the  stove 
that,  unless  like  a  blackberry,  it  is  red  when  it 
is  green,  must  be  dead  ripe. 

The  car  is  a  short  caboose,  fashioned  like  a 
small,  ill-shaped  back  kitchen,  and  it  has  no 
more  wheels  than  a  one-horse  wagon,  which  gives 
it  an  uneasy  and  suggestive  way  on  the  track. 
A  brakeman  sits  with  his  head  swung  out  at  a 
window.  The  conductor  sits  with  his  watch  in 


152  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

his  hand.  Nobody  has  any  business  there  at  all. 
The  engineer  is  doing  his  best  to  make  a  dis 
tant  station,  and  get  upon  the  side-track  before 
the  Express  wants  the  road.  You  find  this  out 
by  degrees.  It  makes  you  feel  light,  but  not 
airy.  The  kitchen  rocks  like  a  cradle  for  a  dozen 
rods,  and  then  jounces  the  light  out  and  the 
water-barrel  over  and  your  hat  off,  and  the  stove 
rattles  like  a  smithy  in  a  driving  time.  Then 
it  gathers  itself  up  like  a  salient  goat,  and 
bounces  against  the  bumper  of  the  next  car  and 
something  snaps.  No  matter. 

The  train  swings  around  a  curve,  and  you  feel 
as  u  did  years  ago  when  you  were  the  last 
boy  on  the  string  in  the  game  of  "  snap  the 
whip.*  You  steady  your  lower  jaw  a  little,  and 
ask  the  conductor  if  he  is  going  to  stop  before 
he  stops  for  good,  to-wit :  meets  the  Express,  and 
he  says,  "  Genesee  ! "  It  occurs  to  you  that  he 
has  mentioned  the  very  place  you  are  bound  for, 
though  you  never  heard  of  it  before.  The  con 
ductor  informs  you  it  is  safe  to  bet  we  are  "  just 
dusting/'  and  you  believe  him  —  the  only  safe 
thing  about  the  train.  It  is  thirty  miles  an  hour. 
Another  head  is  hung  out  of  a  window,  and  you 
think  you  '11  try  to  count  fence-posts.  It  does  n't 
happen  to  be  a  fence,  but  a  stockade  ;  and  as 
for  telegraph-poles,  you  have  seldom  observed 
them  thicker  to  the  mile.  You  look  forward,  and 


A    CABOOSE  RIDE.  153 

see  lights  down  the  track.  Drawing  in  like  a 
turtle,  you  tell  the  conductor.  "  What  is  it, 
Joe?"  and  the  brakeman  replies  "  NothinV 
The  conductor  puts  his  watch  to  his  ear.  Has 
it  stopped  ?  With  rattle  and  roar  the  engineer 
keeps  launching  the  train  into  the  midnight.  A 
shrill  shriek  of  the  locomotive  whistles  you  up, 
and  you  are  on  your  feet  like  a  cat.  The 
brakeman  runs  up  his  little  iron  ladder,  the  speed 
slackens,  the  train  comes  to  a  dead  halt.  It  is 
Genesee,  and  one  grateful  passenger  leaves  that 
frantic  caboose,  to  set  foot  in  it,  as  he  fervently 
prays,  " 

20 


154  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 


CHAPTER    XXII. 


HATCHING     OUT    A     WOMAN. 

WHEN  the  necromancer  turns  farmer,  sows  a 
few  kernels  of  wheat  in  a  little  tin-box  of  earth, 
claps  on  the  cover,  sends  a  few  sparks  of  elec 
tricity  through  it,  whips  off  the  lid  and  shows 
you  the  green  blades  an  inch  and  a  half  long,  in 
a  minute  and  a  half,  it  is  a  phenomenon,  but  not 
a  miracle.  You  can  see  something  quite  as  mar 
velous  in  the  World  on  Wheels  any  day.  Enter 
a  well-filled  car  in  "  the  wee  small  hours  ayont 
the  twal."  The  light  is  dim  but  not  religious 
with  the  uncertain  glimmer  of  candles  or  the 
smoky  flare  of  kerosene,  which  ought  to  be  ban 
ished  from  every  civilized  and  Christian  road. 
The  seats  are  heaped  with  shapeless  piles  of 
clothes.  Folks  are  shut  up  like  jack  -  knives  or 
bagged  like  game.  Here  and  there  a  head  is  vis 
ible,  swaying  about  when  there  is  n't  any  wind, 
as  if  everything  had  "  lodged "  except  a  bearded 
stalk  now  and  then.  By-and-by  the  gray,  cold, 
unspeculative  dawn  begins  to  show  at  the  East 


HATCHING   OUT  A    WOMAN.  156 

windows,  and  there  is  a  stir  among  the  bundles. 
A  man  with  hair  over  his  front  like  a  Shetland 
pony's  mane  emerges  from  .a  blanket.  A  boy 
with  the  head  of  a  distaff  changes  ends.  A 
girl  blossoms  out  in  the  next  seat. 

But  there  is  one  large  heap  of  clothes  that  you 
watch,  and  they  are  good  ones.  A  dainty  hat 
with  a  feather  in  it  swings  from  the  rack  above 
by  one  string.  A  muff  like  a  well  -  to  -  do  cat 
reposes  in  the  wire  manger.  The  bundle  appears 
to  be  composed  of  cloaks,  shawls,  and  a  lap-robe. 
It  is  shaped  like  an  egg,  and  it  is  an  egg.  First 
one  shawl  gives  a  little  lift,  then  another.  There 
is  a  slight  surge  of  a  cloak.  Off  goes  a  shawl. 
A  snug  gaiter  with  a  foot  in  it  emerges  at  one 
end,  and  a  disheveled  head  at  the  other.  Forth 
comes  a  hand,  and  at  last  the  chrysalis  is  rent, 
and  the  occupant  is  hatched  out  before  your 
eyes.  But  it  is  anything  but  a  butterfly.  It  is  a 
crumpled,  drowsy  piece  of  womanhood,  who  slept 
in  her  head  but  not  in  her  hair. 

The  trying,  pitiless  light  of  early  morning 
plays  upon  her  terrifically,  and  she  knows  it. 
It  amuses  you  to  watch  her  under  your  eyelids. 
She  brings  forth  from  her  reticule  a  liver-shaped 
device,  and  she  hangs  it  on  behind,  like  the  fen 
der  of  a  canal -boat,  just  over  her  combativeness 
and  philo-progenitiveness,  and  what  riot.  Then 
she  arranges  and  sorts  out  curls  and  ringlets  for 


156  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

different  organs.  You  ought  to  see  that  head. 
It  grows  like  a  soap-bubble.  She  claps  a  love 
of  a  friz  on  her  self-esteem,  which  allies  her  to 
angels ;  a  coil  of  a  curl  upon  her  firmness,  which 
brings  her,  sometimes,  within  neighborly  distance 
of  donkeys ;  she  borders  her  brow  with  ringlets, 
trails  a  braid  about  her  inhabitiveness  and  con- 
structiveness,  touches  up  the  tress  on  her  venera 
tion,  and  the  head  is  artistically  complete.  She 
washes  her  face  with  a  handkerchief,  rights  her 
collar,  shakes  out  the  creases,  tosses  the  little 
hat  upon  the  top  of  all  things,  and  is  ready  for 
breakfast.  Who  talks  of  necromantic  wheat,  when 
here  is  a  human  flower  hatched  from  an  awk 
ward  bundle  in  less  than  thirty  minutes ! 

When  you  take  a  train  with  a  harem  in  it — 
I  use  the  word  in  its  originally  clean  sense  — 
and  you  have  no  personal  interest  in  the  harem, 
you  are  apt  to  fare  badly.  The  train  is  meant 
where  the  women  are  sorted  out  for  one  car, 
and  what  is  left  is  just  turned  into  another.  Ifc 
is  a  vicious  fashion,  and  fosters  the  art  of  lying. 
There  goes  a  young  man  at  the  heels  of  a  lady 
whom  he  never  saw  before,  or  spoke  to  in  his 
life,  and  he  is  carrying  a  spick-and-span  new 
bandbox.  My  word  for  it,  it  is  as  empty  as  a 
church  contribution-box  on  Saturday  afternoon. 
He  bought  that  box  for  precisely  that  emergen 
cy.  The  lady  ascends  the  platform.  So  does  the 


HATCHING   OUT  A    WOMAN.  157 

bandbox.  The  brakeman  opens  the  door,  and  the 
young  man  slips  in  unquestioned,  and  secures  a 
comfortable  seat.  He  means  to  study  for  the 
ministry,  and  he  has  been  lying  by  bandbox ! 

There  is  another  man.  He  appears  to  be  a 
good  man.  You  are  sure  he  is,  and  he  stands 
where  the  brakeman  can  see  him,  and  touches 
his  hat  to  a  window  of  the  harem  where  nobody 
is  sitting,  and  then,  with  a  little  smiling  affec 
tionate  haste,  he  skips  up  the  steps  arid  says, 
"  Please  let  me  in  a  minute ! "  and  in  he  goes. 
That  unfortunate  man  never  beheld  a  face  in 
that  car  in  all  his  life.  The  more  you  think  of 
it  the  more  vicious  the  fashion  seems.  It  does 
not  benefit  the  ribbons,  and  is  a  positive  damage 
to  the  whiskers.  Pen  men  up  together,  and  if 
they  do  not  act  like  cattle  it  will  be  in  spite 
of  the  pen !  Women  sprinkled  through  the  cars 
keep  the  train  upon  its  honor,  if  not  upon  the 
track,  and  elevate  the  lumbering  thing  from  a 
common  carrier  to  an  educator. 

Flying  bedrooms  are  among  the  crowning 
achievements  of  railway  travel.  They  are  gor 
geous.  They  remind  you  —  the  most  of  them — 
of  the  Hall  of  Representatives  at  Washington, 
which  in  its  turn  suggests  a  Chinese  pagoda. 
They  are  luxuries.  If  you  do  n't  mind  plunging 
endwards  through  your  dreams  at  forty  miles  an 
hour ;  and  if  you  do  n't  care  whom  you  sleep 


158  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

with;  and  if  you  never  catch  cold;  and  if  you 
have  no  "reasonable  doubt"  as  to  getting  out, 
provided  the  bed-room  is  mistaken  for  a  dice-box, 
some  night,  and  you  are  sure  you  will  not  come 
within  an  ace  of  throwing  the  deuce,  there  is 
nothing  like  them.  Snores  in  many  languages  are 
let  loose  upon  you,  and  feet  from  many  boots. 
The  porter  has  an  appetite  for  boots.  He  sits 
up  at  night  to  get  yours,  no  matter  where  you 
put  them,  and  there  he  is  in  the  morning,  the 
boots  in  one  hand  and  nothing  in  the  other.  It 
is  pleasant,  also,  to  have  the  drapery  of  your 
couch  whisked  one  side  every  few  minutes,  just  as 
you  have  dropped  off  into  a  doze,  and  a  strange 
hand  passed  over  your  face,  by  somebody  blun 
dering  about  in  quest  of  his  berth. 

Flying  drawing-rooms  deserve  what  winged  bed 
rooms  need  —  unmitigated  praise.  The  clank  of 
wheels  is  shut  out.  You  exult  to  the  angles  of 
your  elbows,  because  there  is  room  for  them. 
You  can  go  about  in  your  revolving  chair  like 
a  shingle  chanticleer  upon  a  barn  -  ridge.  You 
read  quietly,  write  comfortably,  converse  easily. 
It  is  home  adrift. 


A   FLANK  MOVEMENT,  159 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 


A     FLANK     MOVEMENT. 

IN  war  and  peace  all  people  are  afraid  of  a 
flank  movement.  General  Sherman,  though  he 
never  quite  found  out  what  newspapers  are  for, 
did  discover  that  the  Federal  strength  was  in 
the  enemy's  flanks.  In  other  words,  if  the  Con 
federate  army  had  been  finished  off  prematurely 
like  a  pictorial  cherub,  he  would  have  had  noth 
ing  to  punish.  It  is  said  to  be  a  dreadful  strain 
upon  a  man's  muscles  to  kick  at  nothing !  In 
a  railway  car  a  man  is  apt  to  be  flanked  by 
somebody  —  a  small  army  of  observation  in  the 
rear. 

Take  a  man  who  has  a  fine  sense  of  feeling 
all  over,  and  put  two  women  behind  him  —  one 
woman  thus  located  is  comparatively  harmless, 
but  two  are  a  terror,  for  they  can  talk  about 
you!  —  and  he  begins  to  wonder  if  his  collar  is 
clean  behind,  and  how  he  looks  just  back  of  his 
ears,  and  whether  a  stray  string,  or  something, 
may  not  be  sticking  up  above  his  coat,  though 
he  cannot  remember  that  he  ever  had  anything 


160  THE   WORLD   ON"  WHEELS. 

there  to  be  tied.  Then  lie  tries  to  remember 
whether  he  brushed  his  hair  neatly  behind,  in 
his  haste  this  morning,  lest  he  should  be  behind 
himself.  Just  at  that  minute  there  is  a  coin 
cidence  ;  a  little  laugh  from  the  ladies  on  the 
next  seat,  and  footsteps  on  the  rim  of  his  ear ! 
It  is  mid-winter,  and  it  cannot  be  a  fly.  If  he 
were  only  sure  it  was  a  tarantula,  he  would  be 
happy.  They  laugh  again,  and  again  that  small 
promenader.  He  knows  his  head  harbors  nothing 
but  ideas,  and  yet  a  trespasser  may  have  come 
from  foreign  pastures,  for  all  that.  He  wishes 
he  knew — that  he  could  see  himself  as  "  ithers 
see"  him  at  that  particular  minute. 

Can  it  possibly  be  of  the  race  that  Burns 
discovered  upon  the  woman's  Sunday  bonnet  ? 
He  dares  not  put  his  hand  up,  lest  they  should 
observe  it.  He  feels  his  ears  grow  red  and 
warm.  He  wishes  they  would  get  hot  enough 
to  scorch  that  creature's  feet.  Still  those  small 
footsteps.  He  has  heard,  in  his  time,  the  tramp 
of  armed  men.  It  was  sublimer,  but  not  half 
so  terrible.  Again  that  little  laugh  behind  him, 
and  rising  in  his  desperation  he  goes  to  the  rear 
of  the  car,  claps  his  hand  to  the  burning  ear, 
and  secures  a  single  hair  like  a  bit  of  a  watch- 
spring,  that  had  coiled  on  the  rim  of  the  human 
sea-shell,  and  counterfeited  feet  that  his  fancy 
built  upon,  as  Agassiz  built  two-story  monsters 
out  of  a  rafter  or  a  rib  that  somebody  exhumed 


A  FLANK  MO  YEMEN  T.  161 

and   sent   to   him.      And    those   ladies   had   never 
seen   him   at   all ! 

If  a  man  could  always  have  the  world  in  his 
front,  courage  would  not  be  much  of  a  virtue, 
if  it  ever  is.  There  are  a  great  many  worthless 
things  passed  about  as  genuine.  Now,  that  little 
Spartan  scamp  who  stole  the  fox,  hid  it  under 
his  robe,  and  let  the  creature  relieve  him  of  his 
liver  rather  than  be  found  out  and  lose  the 
plunder,  is  handed  about  with  a  label  to  him, 
as  a  sort  of  pocket-model  of  fortitude.  I  dug  it 
out  of  Greek  when  I  was  a  boy,  and  was  taught 
it  was  worth  finding.  Why,  he  was  nothing  but 
a  miserable  little  thief,  that  could  n't  speak  a 
word  of  English  !  So,  if  courage  is  a  virtue,  the 
brave  little  wren  carries  more  virtue  to  the  ounce 
than  anything  going.  The  writer  knows  a  pub 
lic  speaker  who  trembles  as  did  the  king  who 
saw  something  written  on  the  wall,  if  he  is  com 
pelled  to  pass  through  the  body  of  the  house 
to  reach  the  platform,  and  yet  always  faces  the 
audience  with  perfect  self-possession.  He  has 
been  known  to  flounder  through  an  unbroken 
snow-drift,  and  climb  in  by  a  window,  simply  to 
avoid  the  flajik  movement  that  took  all  his  cour 
age  out  of  him.  When  you  see  a  man  turn  a 
cold  shoulder  to  a  chilling  wind  instead  of  squarely 
facing  it,  you  may  count  him  among  the  victims 
of  rheumatism,  and  not  among  the  philosophers. 
21* 


162  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 


LIGHT     AND      SHADE. 

THE  saddest  train  upon  which  the  writer  ever 
took  passage  was  the  Hospital  Train,  with  its 
maimed  and  mangled  burden,  that  ran  from  the 
still,  white  tents  of  Stevenson,  Ala.,  to  Nash 
ville,  Tenn.,  just  after  the  battle  of  Chickamauga. 
There  was  no  lack  of  ventilation,  for  some  of 
the  cars  were  platforms  —  the  kind  that  make 
Martyrs,  but  not  Presidents.  Not  much  finish  in 
precious  woods  anywhere  that  you  could  see.  It 
rained  heavily  and  persistently  through  the  twelve 
hour  trip,  and  there  the  wounded  lay  strewn 
about  on  the  platforms,  and  packed  away  in  the 
box-cars.  But  you  heard  less  complaint  than  is 
made  any  day  on  a  palace-train  because  one  re 
fractory  rose-leaf  is  crumpled.  The  suffering  was 
silent,  and  all  the  more  terrible  because  it  was 
so.  The  stricken  boys  had  started  for  home,  and 
there  was  a  strange,  ghastly  cheerfulness  upon 
their  faces,  that  was  sadder  than  sadness.  They 


LIGHT  AND   SHADE.  163 

talked  about  "God's  country,"  whither  they  were 
bound,  till  your  heart  ached  to  think  how  many 
of  them  would  find  "God's  acre"  before  they 
reached  the  blessed  North. 

The  bearing  of  that  wounded  brigade  was  won 
derfully  glorified  with  the  grace  of  patience.  It 
taught  you  what  splendid  stuff  human  nature  is 
made  of.  They  tell  about  men  of  iron,  and 
nerves  of  steel,  and  look  as  if  they  thought  they 
had  said  something  —  as  if  there  were  anything 
quite  so  good  to  make  a  man  of  as  the  flesh 
that  can  quiver  and  the  nerve  that  can  twinge. 
Those  cars  on  that  Chattanooga  Road  were  bad 
enough,  though  the  reader  cannot  get  the  idea 
unless  he  amuses  himself  by  riding  upon  a  lively 
trip-hammer ;  but  of  all  wheeled  contrivances, 
the  ambulance  that  was  used  in  the  late  war  is 
the  most  spiteful.  You  would  naturally  think  it 
"an  invention  of  the  enemy" — that  he  had  de 
vised  it  for  the  special  purpose  of  finishing  the 
people  he  had  not  quite  killed  with  gunpowder. 
The  jolty,  jerky  thing,  with  wolf-trap  springs  that 
snap  at  every  inequality  in  the  road,  and  send 
waves  of  pain  through  the  shattered  frames  of 
its  occupants,  is,  for  a  merciful  device,  certainly 
the  most  cruel.  Be  our  prayer,  that  neither 
hospital  train  nor  ambulance  will  be  needed  ever 
more  in  all  the  land ! 


164  THE    WORLD    ON  WHEELS. 

Did  you  ever  see  troops  of  young  swallows 
peppering  the  southern  slope  of  a  broad-roofed 
barn,  just  as  they  are  making  ready  to  leave  for 
a  sunnier  clime  ?  What  confusion  of  happy 
tongues,  what  half-human  chatter  and  frolic.  If 
you  would  see  the  same  picture  later  in  the  sea 
son,  after  the  swallows  are  all  gone,  just  board  a 
passenger  train  in  December  upon  a  road  lined  with 
schools  for  girls,  like  the  Chicago  and  Milwaukee, 
when  the  flocks  are  let  loose  and  bound  home 
for  the  holidays.  The  birds  are  gayer  and 
brighter,  and  worth  a  gallon  of  swallows  every 
one  of  them,  no  matter  whether  swallows  are 
higher  than  sparrows  or  not  —  half  a  farthing 
apiece  —  but  they  recall  the  picture  on  the  barn- 
slope,  till  the  girls  and  the  birds  seem  to  be 
twittering  over  the  same  dish  of  joyous  expec^ 
tation. 

You  had  left  Milwaukee  a  little  dull  and  a 
trifle  surly,  but  as  the  train  halts  along  at  those 
beautiful  villages  where  the  dove-cotes  are,  and 
the  merry  creatures  throng  aboard,  and  captivate 
you  and  take  the  train,  and  fill  it  with  laughter 
and  ribbons,  and  jaunty  little  hats  about  as  big 
as  the  palm  of  your  hand,  and  sit  down  three 
in  a  seat,  when  their  flounces  will  let  them,  and 
talk  all  at  once  and  all  the  time,  then  you,  too, 
brighten  up  and  grow  human,  and  wish  you 
were  a  boy  or  a  girl  again,  so  that  you  could 


LIGHT  AND   SHADE*  165 

see  things  rose-colored,  and  think  it  blessing 
enoagh  to  live,  and  be  happy  without  a  plan. 
Whoever  says  gravely  to  himself,  "  I  am  going 
to  be  happy  to-day,"  is  pretty  sure  to  have  a 
sober-sided  time  of  it.  I  do  not  think  anybody 
can  toe  happiness,  as  the  children  used  to  toe  a 
crack  when  they  stood  up  to  spell.  A  great 
deal  of  the  commodity  comes  to  a  man  when  he 
is  not  looking  for  it,  just  as  a  side-glance  some 
times  reveals  a  star  that  the  astronomer  had 
been  vainly  seeking  with  the  direct  gaze. 

The  Lord  has  arranged  things  wisely  for  our 
mere  physical  delight.  He  has  not  planted  all 
the  violets  in  the  world  in  one  place,  neither 
has  He  fenced  in  the  roses  between  particular 
lines  and  parallels  of  latitude  and  longitude,  nor 
fashioned  them  to  grow  up  close  under  our  noses. 
But  we  go  carelessly  along,  and  we  get  a  whiff 
of  the  violets  down  there  in  the  grass,  and  the 
lilacs  over  yonder  in  the  yard,  and  the  roses  in 
the  fence  corner,  and  they  all  go  to  make  up  the 
fragrance  and  the  beauty  of  the  day,  though  we 
had  not  been  looking  for  any  of  them.  It  is  the 
indirect  ray  from  everything,  whether  it  be  the 
sun  or  the  drop  of  dew,  that  unravels  and  makes 
visible  the  beauty  of  the  world. 

There  is  a  great  deal  said  about  spheres.  A 
planetary  stranger  would  think  that  about  half 
the  world  were  engaged  in  getting  a  lesson  in 


166  THE  WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

Spherical  Trigonometry  —  man's  sphere  and  wo 
man's  sphere.  Most  of  the  unhappiness,  uneasi 
ness,  and  tendency  to  bolt  spheres,  is  due  to  an 
impression  many  people  unconsciously  entertain, 
that  the  Lord  did  not  understand  His  business 
when  He  made  the  Gardener  and  his  wife  —  that 
he  could  have  made  a  better  job  of  it.  Take 
an  open-browed,  clean-hearted  girl,  blessed  with 
a  fair  share  of  beauty  of  some  kind,  and  then 
make  her  believe  that  she  is  about  the  neatest 
piece  of  work  the  Lord  ever  made,  and  keep  her 
believing  so,  and  you  will  have  a  woman  by-and- 
by,  if  heaven  does  n't  want  her  before,  who  will 
never  trouble  herself  much  about  spheres  and  tan 
gents,  or  any  other  problems  of  Social  Geometry, 
but  will  just  brighten  and  sweeten  the  world  all 
the  days  of  her  life. 

The  day  those  school-girls  came  into  the  car 
there  was  a  sour-visaged  man  in  it  whom  you 
had  been  watching.  His  features  were  all  hud 
dled  together — he  had  done  it  himself — his  eyes, 
nose,  mouth  and  chin  all  puckered  to  a  focus  of 
chronic  anxiety.  He  looked  as  if  he  had  been 
getting  those  features  all  ready  to  be  poured 
through  a  tunnel  into  a  vinegar  -  barrel.  You 
were  curious  to  observe  the  effect  of  the  merry 
inroad  upon  him.  At  first  not  a  movement.  He 
seemed  as  sulphuric  as  ever.  Some  of  the  girls 
threw  little  smiles  his  way,  though  not  at  him, 


LIGHT  AND   SHADE.  167 

and  some  of  them  hit  him,  and  he  began  to 
watch  them.  They  were  too  many  for  him,  and 
he  concluded  he  would  n't  run  into  the  vinegar- 
barrel  just  yet. 

It  was  curious  to  see  that  small  mass-meeting 
of  features  break  up  and  distribute  themselves 
around  his  face,  each  in  its  place,  until  his  coun 
tenance  got  about  as  broad  as  a  sun  -  dial,  and 
about  as  bright  as  the  dial  does  when  the  sun 
shines  on  it.  He  had  been  thinking  for  a  long 
time  that  he  needed  medicine  of  some  kind.  As 
he  would  have  worded  it  himself,  "  he  felt  a 
good  eel  out  of  kilter,"  but  it  was  young  folks 
he  needed  all  the  while,  and  nothing  at  all  that 
a  druggist  could  sell  him. 


168  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 


CHAPTER    XXV. 


PRECIOUS    CARGOES. 

THE  richest  cargo  in  the  world  is  a  cargo  of 
TIME,  and  the  locomotive  was  made  to  draw  it. 
Yesterday  I  saw  a  man  who  tugged  his  house 
hold  goods  and  gods  from  East  to  West  in  thirty 
days.  To  be  sure,  the  roads  had  three  dimen 
sions,  length,  breath  and  —  thickness;  —  who  ever 
knew  a  migrant  to  flit  in  pleasant  weather?  — 
but  he  drove  early  and  late,  and  tired  out  the 
family  dog  and  took  him  aboard  —  the  dog  that 
had  developed  his  muscles  in  digging  out  wood- 
chucks  and  shaking  pole  -  cats  to  pieces  in  the 
Catskills,  He  has  made  that  journey  since  in 
'thirty  hours,  and  his  account  between  the  old 
time  and  the  new  stands  1 :  24  —  a  pretty  for 
midable  balance  when  the  commodity  is  a  thing 
so  precious  as  time. 

Take  that  piece  of  animated  nature  called  the 
commercial  traveler,  who  slings  his  little  knap 
sack  under  his  left  shoulder-blade  and  says,  "the 
world  is  mine  oyster ! "  He  is  as  much  a  pro- 


PRECIOUS  CARGOES.  169 

duct  of  the  locomotive  as  a  puff  of  steam.  He  is 
a  wholesale  store  in  a  pair  of  boots.  The  great 
house  in  New  York,  Chicago,  Cincinnati,  is  trun 
dled  about  the  world  by  sample,  and  he  girds  up 
his  loins  and  keeps  it  company.  The  engine  has 
made  him  possible.  He  is  about  as  wonderful  as 
the  Arabian  Genius  that  came  out  of  the  little 
bottle  and  clouded  all  the  land.  Let  us  say  he 
travels  fifteen  thousand  miles  a  year ;  that  he 
keeps  upon  the  track  ten  years  without  break 
ing  his  neck ;  that  he  begins  his  commercial 
raids  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  unships  his  little 
knapsack,  buys  out  the  wholesale  house  he 
"  represented,"  and  retires  from  the  road  at 
thirty-two,  thus  making  a  beginning  so  noble 
that  it  fairly  laps  over  upon  the  ending. 

Now,  could  you  set  back  his  almanac  for  him 
about  a  generation,  a  couple  of  hundred  years 
would  be  little  enough  to  accomplish  the  work, 
and  he  must  bequeath  the  unfinished  business 
to  his  great-grandson — a  legacy  from  his  dead  and 
gone  ancestor.  Here  he  is  now,  with  the  work 
done,  all  the  silver  on  his  dining-table.  and  not 
a  thread  of  it  in  his  hair !  Those  witches  and 
wizards  of  locomotives  have  drawn  a  cargo  of 
more  than  two  centuries  about  the  world  for 
him,  upon  which  lie  could  draw  at  will,  and  his 
draft  was  honored  every  time.  They  have  made 
his  days  "  long  in  the  land,"  no  matter  what 


170  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

lie  thought  of  his  father ;  made  a  young  Methu 
selah  of  him,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  old  if 
a  day,  and  the  grasshopper  not  a  grain  heavier. 

The  modern  cars  have  taken  aboard  what  was 
little  thought  of  in  the  early  history  of  locomo 
tives —  breathing  material.  Ventilation  has  by  no 
means  attained  perfection,  but  remember  the  low, 
narrow  boxes,  almost  as  close  as  mortality's 
"  long  home,"  that  they  used  to  call  coaches,  in 
which  people  made  sardines  of  themselves,  and 
caught  colds  and  influenzas  and  asthmas  and  ca 
tarrhs  and  other  musical  instruments,  and  you 
will  not  feel  like  being  very  querulous  over  the 
discomforts  of  modern  locomotion.  That  ancient 
fashion  —  it  was  the  best  the  stupid  old  world 
knew  —  of  boxing  a  man  up  in  cars  full  of  ni 
trogen,  was  an  abomination  to  chemistry  and 
comfort.  A  stove  in  the  center,  a  sort  of  altar 
for  the  rendering  of  unseemly  offerings  that  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh  is  said  to  be  answerable  for,  used 
to  form  a  torrid  zone  about  eight  feet  broad,  sub 
dued  into  a  pair  of  temperates,  and  eked  out  at 
the  ends  with  a  couple  of  frigids,  and  there  you 
have  the  climate  of  the  old  railroads.  Then, 
what  with  those  who  broke  fast  on  bolognas  and 
the  blessed  vegetable  that  used  to  keep  the  girls 
of  Weathersfield  a-crying,  you  had  all  the  odors 
of  Cologne  except  cologne. 

Did  you  ever  watch  a  kitten  under  a  receiver 
when  the  air-pump  began  to  rob  her  of  her 


PRECIOUS   CARGOES.  171 

breathing  material  ?  —  the  signs  of  distress,  the 
furry  sides  working  like  a  busy  bellows,  the  be 
wildered  looking  about  for  help?  If  it  was  a 
talented  kitten,  perhaps  she  discovered  the  fatal 
orifice  in  the  brazen  floor  whence  her  life  was 
escaping,  and  clapped  her  paw  upon  it,  as  cats 
have  done  before  now,  and  so  stopped  the  rob 
bery  and  won  respect  and  saved  her  life.  This 
time  the  victim  is  not  a  cat  but  a  king,  to- wit, 
one  of  the  American  sovereigns,  secured  in  an 
old-time  car,  with  nothing  aboard  to  make  breath 
of.  It  is  curious  to  see  how  he  degenerates  by 
a  series  of  melancholy  transitions  into  a  miserable 
vegetable.  You  put  him  into  the  car  brisk  and 
bright  as  nature  will  let  him  be.  The  sixth  hour 
he  grows  irritable ;  the  tenth,  dull.  His  fancy 
leaves  him  in  the  fifteenth.  He  begins  to  think 
how  far  it  is  to  dinner,  and  how  much  he  will 
eat,  for  he  is  just  passing  through  the  brute 
region,  on  his  way  from  humanity  down  to  vege 
tation,  where  his  epitaph  might  be,  "gone  to 
grass."  The  eighteenth  hour  he  is  surly;  the 
twentieth,  dumb.  The  twenty-fourth  "  does "  for 
him  and  the  metamorphosis  is  complete,  the 
necromantic  experiment  is  over.  He  cannot  re 
member  who  wrote  Milton's  "  Paradise  Lost." 
He  forgets  the  name  of  the  principal  character 
in  Hamlet.  He  runs  up  a  few  rounds  of  the 
multiplication  table  just  to  see  if  they  are  all 
there.  He  ceases  to  think  at  all,  looks  steadily 


172  THE   WORLD   ON  WHEELS. 

out  of  the  window  and  sees  nothing.  He  ceases 
to  count  anything  in  the  census.  He  is  not  so 
much  as  Nebuchadnezzar.  He  is  grass. 

But  "  all  things  have  become  new/'  What 
speed  in  the  engine ;  what  priceless  cargoes  of 
time  and  oxygen  upon  the  train;  how  fast  and 
long  we  live  in  a  little  while  !  Let  us  be  glad. 
Uneasy  people  sometimes  wish  they  had  been 
born  in  the  days  of  Alexander,  or  Moses,  or 
Methuselah,  or  somebody  who  looms  up  giganti 
cally  in  the  mists  of  history.  It  is  better  to  live 
in  the  days  of  the  Steam-engine.  It  has  con 
quered  more  worlds  than  Alexander,  traversed 
vaster  wildernesses  than  the  Israelite,  and  re 
claimed  them  as  it  went;  and  behold,  by  the 
power  of  the  Engine  we  live  to  be  hundreds  of 
years  old,  and  never  give  it  a  thought ! 

Studying  life  on  the  railroad  train  and  looking 
into  a  kaleidoscope  are  somewhat  alike.  You  can 
not  exhaust  the  figures  in  the  one,  and  almost 
every  turn  of  the  wheels  brings  up  a  new  and 
curious  combination  in  the  other.  And  so  I  find 
myself  wondering  why  I  omitted  this,  forgot  that, 
and  ever  thought  I  could  possibly  be  content 
with  the  few  chance  glimpses  at  thirty  miles  an 
hour  that  are  here  recorded. 

The  Engineer  has  rung  the  bell,  the  Conductor 
has  pulled  the  cord,  the  Passenger  Train  has 
gone.  There  is  nothing  now  to  be  done  except 
to  ship  by  a  dull  freight  train  a  little  heavy 


(173) 


BAGGAGE 


CHAPTER  I. 


MY    STARKY    DAYS. 

THERE  are  some  stars  to  which,  in  my  boy 
hood,  I  was  wont  to  lay  special  claim.  Perhaps 
everybody  is.  I  never  thought  of  their  being  out 
of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
where  I  first  began  to  "see  stars,"  not  meaning 
those  early  experiments  upon  the  glare  ice  of 
Leonard's  Pond,  when  my  heels  went  up  like 
Mercury's,  and  my  head  went  down  like  the  flint 
lock  of  an  old  Queen's  arm.  One  large  ripe  star 
used  to  tremble  just  over  the  edge  of  Clinton's 
Woods  —  I  loved  to  fancy  it  would  lodge  some 
time,  and  I  would  go  a-nutting  for  worlds  as  I 
did  for  beech-nuts — a  star  with  such  a  warm  and 
human  sort  of  light,  so  like  an  earthly  fire-side 
somewhere,  with  the  door  open,  that  it  always 
inspired  a  home  feeling,  and  I  counted  it  as  much 

(175) 


1T6  BAGGAGE. 

among  the  belongings  of  that  particular  landscape 
as  the  daisies  in  the  pasture,  and  not  more  than 
a  breath  or  two  farther  off. 

I  have  heard  since  that  it  has  charmed  no  end 
of  poets  to  write  verses  to  it  that  never  were 
sent ;  that  it  is  called  Venus,  when  it  deserves  an 
honest  womanly  name — Mary  or  Rachel,  Ruth  or 
Eve.  Is  it  not  strange  that  we  christen  a  great 
beautiful  world  as  we  would  not  dare  name  any 
body's  daughter,  unless  her  mother  had  an  extra 
pair  of  feet  in  daily  use,  or  her  father  were  con 
tent  to  be  called  "Towzer" — at  least  now  that 
the  turbaned  "  aunty,"  who  opened  her  mouth 
like  a  piano  and  laughed  clear  across  the  planta 
tion,  has  been  "  amended  "  and  counted  in  among 
the  souls  to  be  saved. 

If  the  heathen  began  the  nomenclature  of  the 
skies,  pray  let  it  be  ended  by  Christians.  There 
are  no  Alexanders  about,  to  be  crying  for  new 
worlds.  They  are  glittering  into  the  field  of  view 
every  night  or  two,  and  the  business  of  naming 
goes  on  after  the  fashion  of  dead  and  dusty 
idolaters.  Had  Adam  made  such  work  "  calling 
names"  when  the  Lord  bade  him,  he  would  have 
been  sent  down  on  his  knees  there  in  Eden  to 
weed  onions  unto  tears  and  repeotance.  Let  our 
star-finders  give  them  a  hint  —  those  keen  fellows 
who  shall,  by -and -by,  roll  that  date  of  theirs, 
Anno  Domini  3,000,  over  and  over  like  a  school 


MY  STARRY  DAYS.  177 

of  dolphins  —  that  we,  at  least,  have  abandoned 
Latin  and  Greek  gods ;  that  our  poultry  are  quite 
safe  for  all  anybody  in  America,  *be  he  fool  or 
philosopher,  ordering  a  cock  served  up  to  JEscu- 
lapius. 

But  if  ever  anything  thoroughly  belonged  to  the 
owner,  the  heavenly  Dipper  —  that  magnificent 
utensil  knobbed  at  the  angles  and  riveted  along 
the  handle  with  seven  stars  —  belonged  to  me.  I 
should  have  clutched  it  long  ago  if,  like  the  dag 
ger  of  Shakespeare's  man,  it  had  only  hung  "  the 
handle  toward  my  hand;"  as  much  household  ware 
as  its  humble  cousin  forty  times  removed,  that 
hung  by  a  little  chain  beside  the  well.  From 
that  celestial  dipper  —  or  so  I  thought  —  the  dews 
were  poured  out  gently  on  the  summer  world. 
It  was  the  only  thing  about  the  house  perfectly 
safe  from  thieves  and  rust ;  for  was  it  not  of  a 
truth  a  treasure  laid  up  in  heaven  ?  And  how 
sadly  right  I  was ;  for  there,  only  last  night, 
blazed  the  Dipper  as  if  it  were  fire-new,  while 
the  home  of  my  boyhood  has  faded  out  like  a 
dream  and  vanished  away. 

There  was  yet  another  trinket  of  domesticated 
heaven,  if  I  may  say  so.  No  matter  what  name 
the  Chaldeans  called  it  by,  to  me  it  will  always 
be  the  star  in  the  well.  A  gray  sweep  swayed 
up  above  that  well  like  an  acute  accent ;  and 
in  its  round  liquid  disc,  that  gave  me  glance  for 


178  BAGGAGE. 

glance,  I  used  to  see  sometimes  the  double  of 
a  star  straight  from  the  top  of  heaven.  It 
was  plainer  than  any  pearl  that  "  ever  lay  under 
Oman's  green  water."  They  that  drank  at  that 
well  in  the  old  days,  long  ago  sat  down  by  the 
river  of  crystal  in  the  Kingdom  of  Life,  but 
its  dark  disc,  like  a  strange  unwinking  eye,  still 
watches  the  zenith  from  its  depths,  and  some 
times  a  star  is  let  down  into  it  till  it  kindles 
as  if  lighted  by  a  thought. 

That  handful  of  household  stars  is  a  part  of 
my  heritage.  No  matter  how  dim  the  night, 
how  disastered  the  sky,  I  close  my  eyes  and  they 
yet  rise  strangely  beautiful  and  shine  across  the 
cloudy  world  even  as  they  always  shone  since  their 
illustrious  kindred  began  to  sing  together.  The 
prayer  of  the  athletic  savage  was  "  for  light." 
But  our  terrestrial  day  is  only  a  veil  thick-woven 
of  sunbeam  warp  and  woof.  The  dewy  hand  of 
Night  withdraws  it.  and  lo  I  the  heavens  are  all 
abroad  I  Let  Ajax  mend  his  prayer,  and  let  the 
burden  be  for  calm  unclouded  night. 

But  there  is  another  constellation  not  less 
precious  than  my  sidereal  possessions — a  cluster 
of  day-stars  as  resplendent  as  if  they  were 
called  Arcturus  every  one.  They  shine  with  a 
warm  and  genial  ray  —  undimmed,  thank  God ! 
by  any  care  or  cloud.  Time  is  not,  as  most  men 
think,  a  natural  product.  It  is  only  fragments 


MY  STARRY  DAYS.  179 

of  duration  fashioned  into  shape.  The  whirling 
worlds  of  God  are  so  much  burnished  machinery 
for  making  times  and  seasons.  They  ripple  the 
everlasting  current  of  white  and  dumb  duration. 
It  swells  in  ages,  undulates  in  years ;  and  all 
along  the  ceaseless  solemn,  flow,  sparkle  like  syl 
lables  of  song  the  days  of  all  our  lives.  The 
tumbling  planets  end  their  work,  and  man's  be 
gins.  Whoever  stamps  the  image  and  superscrip 
tion  of  a  worthy  deed,  a  sterling  truth,  a  splen 
did  fact,  upon  a  day,  has  hallowed  and  bright 
ened  it  evermore.  The  day  a  man  is  born  who 
rallies  the  sluggish  race  and  puts  it  on  its  honor 
for  all  time,  stands  out  from  the  rank  and  file 
of  the  dull  almanac  and  halts  you  like  a  senti 
nel.  The  day  a  man  is  dead  who  gave  some 
other  day  a  might  and  meaning  it  never  had 
before,  is  strewn  with  immortelles  and  borne 
abreast  with  marching  ages. 

Take  a  twenty-fifth  of  January,  one  hundred 
and  eleven  years  ago  —  standing  there  in  its 
place  as  plain  as  yesterday,  illuminated  all  over, 
like  an  old  saint's  legend,  with  Scottish  song  that 
comes  to  a  man  like  the  beat  of  his  heart, — 
and  tell  me  if  you  think  it  worth  while  for 
anybody  to  be  born  on  that  recurring  day  with 
any  hope  of  wresting  it  from  "  Robert  Burns, 
Poet"?  True,  the  Ettrick  Shepherd  saw  the 
light  on  a  twenty-fifth ,  but  the  best  we  can 


180  BAGGAGE. 

do   for   him   is   to   let    his    "Skylark"    warble   up 
to   the    top   of  the   wintry   morning   if  it   can. 

The  Man  of  Mount  Vernon  endowed  Februa 
ry,  that  cheapest  of  the  months,  with  a  twenty- 
second  it  never  owned  before  ;  took  what  had 
been  a  blank  white  leaf  between  a  brace  of 
nights,  so  bent  back  upon  it  the  radiant  truth 
of  all  his  life,  that,  independent  of  the  sun,  it 
shines  riGfht  on  —  the  radiant  truth  that  the  man 

O 

of  truest  symmetry  is  the  man  of  truest  power. 
And  what  more  can  any  one  do  for  that  sev 
enth  of  February  than  he  did  to  be  born  in  it, 
whom  Dombey  shall  lead  gently  by  the  hand  far 
down  another  age,  for  whom  Little  Nell  shall 
plead  with  a  forgetful  world,  and  who  left  us 
the  voice  of  Tiny  Tim  for  a  perpetual  benedic 
tion —  "God  bless  us,  Every  one!" 

THE  OLD-TIME  FOURTH. 

I  WOULD  not  give  much  for  the  American  who 
has  nowhere  in  the  year  a  day  domed  like  a 
tower  and  filled  with  a  chime  of  bells.  Now,  the 
FOURTH  OF  JULY  is  one  of  my  days  with  stars 
in  it,  and  bells  withal,  that  shine  and  ring  and 
roar  out  of  my  childhood  with  an  eloquence  that 
always  sets  the  heart  pounding  with  the  concussion 
of  the  anvil  and  the  feet  keeping  step  to  the 
frolic  of  Yankee  Doodle.  It  lights  up  the  time 


MY  STARRY  DAYS.  181 

when  you  could  stand  upright  under  life's  East 
ern  eaves ;  when  day  broke  in  the  thunder  of  a 
six-pounder,  and  the  sun  came  up  to  the  clangor 
of  the  village  bell,  and  the  bare  and  barkless 
spar  they  had  raised  and  planted  the  night  be 
fore,  budded  like  Aaron's  rod,  and  blossomed 
out  with  the  broad  field  of  stars. 

On  comes  the  drum-major,  noAV  with  "eyes  to 
the  front  all,"  and  now  facing  the  music  with 
backward  step,  his  arms  swaying  up  and  down, 
the  horizontal  baton  grasped  firmly  in  his  hands, 
as  if  he  were  working  the  band  with  a  brake, 
and  playing  streams  of  martial  melody  on  man 
kind.  Then  the  snarl  of  the  snare  -  drums,  all 
careened  for  punishment  like  refractory  boys  of 
the  old-fashioned  stripe,  and  the  growl  of  the  big 
bass  brother  at  their  heels,  and  the  fifes  warbling 
up  and  down  in  the  grumble  and  roar,  possessed 
and  summoned  up  my  soul  —  shall  I  say  it  and 
give  thanks?- — possess  and  summon  up  my  soul 
to-day.  Then  came  the  flag  with  an  eagle  on  it, 
and  two  spontoons  beside  it  to  pierce  that  eagle's 
enemies.  Then  the  patriots  of  the  Revolution, 
who  remembered  when  there  was  no  such  thing 
as  a  Fourth  of  July  with  a  big  F ;  old  smoky 
fellows,  two  or  three,  with  eagles  in  their  eyes  — 
old  fellows  gnarled  like  the  hemlock,  but  honored 
like  the  pine,  that  had  smelled  powder  at  Ben- 
nington;  and  the  orator  of  the  day  with  an  eagle 


182  BAGGAGE. 

in  his  eye  ;  and  the  clergyman  who  had  prayed 
a  short  prayer  and  fired  a  long  gun  at  Yorktown 
or  somewhere,  with  an  eagle  in  his  eye. 

Then,  to  the  tune  of  "  Bonaparte  crossing  the 
Rhine,"  out  stepped  the  white-legged  infantry, 
with  breasts  and  backs  of  blue,  each  with  an 
eagle  sewed  upon  a  bright  tin  plate,  all  gar 
nished  round  with  stars  and  fastened  to  his  hat, 
and  that  eagle's  royal  tail  feathering  out  at  the 
top  the  while,  to  plume  him  up  like  Henry  of 
Navarre. 

Then  came  the  riflemen  in  green  frock-coats 
and  caps  befringed,  and  horns  slung  at  their 
sides,  that  once  were  tossed  defiant  upon  a  shaggy 
head  that  might  have  answered  back  the  bulls 
of  Bashan,  and  had,  for  anything  you  know,  an 
eagle  in  its  eye ;  and  on  they  went,  their  rifles 

lightly  borne  to  the  order  of  "Trail ARMS!" 

Ah,  it  was  "  the  hunters  of  Kentucky "  all  over 
again.  It  was  the  whole  Boone  family  in  the 
flesh.  It  was  an  apparition  of  the  dark  and 
bloody  ground. 

Then,  with  the  warble  of  bugle  and  much 
clatter,  clang  and  ring  of  hoofs  and  spurs  and 
scabbards,  the  old-fashioned  troopers  rode  by  with 
eagles  in  their  eyes  ;  their  holsters,  small  pack 
ages  of  thunder  and  lightning,  at  the  saddle-bow; 
their  shiny  cylinders  of  portmanteaus  snugly 
strapped  behind ;  the  terrible  frown  of  a  bear- 


MY  STARRY  DAYS.  183 

skin  cap  lowering  on  every  brow,  its  jaunty 
feather,  tipped  with  emblematic  blood,  springing 
out  of  the  fur  hive  tne  blossom  ot  a  magnified 
and  glorified  bull-thistle  —  and  the  flare  of  the 
red-coats  set  the  scene  and  your  heart  on  fire 
together ! 

Then  came  the  citizens  by  twos,  as  the  pairs 
went  into  the  ark,  and  the  girls  in  white  frocks 
with  sashes  and  ribbons  of  blue,  as  if  they  had 
just  torn  out  of  heaven  and  brought  away  with 
them  some  fragments  of  azure  for  token ;  but 
there  are  no  eagles  any  more  in  the  line- — only 
white  doves  and  angels  unfallen.  Then  the  mouth 
of  the  orator  was  opened  —  a  coop  of  rhetorical 
eagles,  and  they  flew  abroad  and  swooped  down 
upon  our  feelings  and  bore  them  aloft  triumphant, 
and  perched  upon  our  souls  and  made  eyries  in 
our  lofty  hearts,  and  we  were  better  and  braver 
for  it  all.  Then  came  the  dinner  in  a  "bower" 
—  have  you  quite  forgotten  the  dining-hall  of  green 
branches  ?  —  with  such  dainty  roasters  as  the 
Gentle  Elia  would  have  wept  over  and  then  de 
voured,  and  toasts  that  foamed  over  the  tops  of 
the  goblets  and  set  themselves  aright  in  the 
cups ;  and  a  flight  of  hurrahs  went  up  with  the 
eagles  —  and  the  day  was  done. 

Do  you  think  I  would  exchange  that  dear 
absurd  old  day  for  "the  pomp  and  circumstance" 
of  any  later  pageant  ?  A  Fourth-of-Julyism  has 


184  BAGGAGE, 

somehow  become  an  object  of  contempt.  People 
tell  us,  but  not  always  in  good  English,  that 
speeches  are  idle,  because  they  have  heard  that 
silence  is  golden,  and,  like  the  green  spectacles 
of  Moses  and  the  talk  of  the  rascal  in  the  Vicar 
of  Wakefield,  should  be  labeled  "fudge"  As  if 
it  was  not  an  idea  clothed  in  a  snug  jacket  of 
words,  and  not  a  deed  at  all,  that  first  gave 
the  Fourth  of  July  a  meaning  and  a  gift  to 
mankind !  As  if  the  elder  Adams '  recipe  to 
pickle  the  day— 1  write  with  no  irreverence  — 
to  pickle  the  day  in  "  villainous  saltpetre "  would 
not  be  sure  to  keep  it !  As  if  the  roar  of  ar 
tillery —  thank  God  for  the  blank  cartridges  of 
Independence!  —  were  anything  more  than  that 
eloquent  whisper  uttered  under  the  shadow  of 
King's  Mountain  in  the  old  North  State,  "  these 
colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  free," 
translated  into  the  dialect  of  gunpowder !  Shine 
on,  starry  clay  of  my  boyhood !  Thy  thunders, 
thy  eagles,  and  thy  memories,  be  they  blessed 
forever  ! 

THANKSGIVING. 

I  AM  sorry  for  the  man  —  especially  the  woman 
—  who  has  nowhere  a  day  or  two  touched  with 
some  tender  grace  ;  a  day  of  which,  travel  fast 
and  far  as  he  may,  he  is  never  out  of  sight ; 
that  warms  his  heart  for  him,  makes  him  gent- 


MY  STARRY  DAYS.  185 

ler,  purer,  younger  than  before,  more  like  a 
woman  and  just  as  much  of  a  man.  Everywhere 
else  in  Christendom  the  year  has  three  hundred 
and  sixty-five  days,  but  in  America  it  has  a  day 
of  grace,  and  as  much  a  New  England  product 
as  Joel  Barlow  or  Indian  corn  :  for  we  count 
three  hundred  and  sixty  -five  days  and  THANKS 
GIVING. 

As  everybody  knows,  the  day  was  the  most 
blessed  of  blunders.  Those  single-minded,  grand 
old  fellows  —  old  when  they  were  young  —  that 
drifted  across  the  sea  in  the  cup  of  a  Flower 
like  a  parcel  of  bees,  bringing,  some  of  them, 
their  stings  with  them,  and  from  whose  rude 
beginnings  this  broad  continent  now  hums  like 
a  hive  in  June,  had  garnered  their  corn,  and 
tugged  up  their  back-logs,  and  kicked  the  light 
snow  of  "squaw  winter"  from  their  Spanish- 
leather  boots,  and  hung  up  their  tall  hats  on  the 
pegs  behind  the  door,  and  picked  their  flints  for 
such  game  as  red  Indian  and  black  bear,  and 
spread  open  their  Bibles,  and  made  ready  for  a 
sojourn  before  the  fire  ;  then  came  one  of  the 
American  savages  they  never  shot  at  —  to-wit  : 
Indian  Summer. 


For  past  the  yellow  regiments  of  corn 
There  came  an  Indian  maiden,  autumn-born  , 
And  June  returned  and  held  her  by  the  hand, 
And  led  Time's  smiling  Ruth  through  all  the  land, 


186  BAGGAGE. 

So  they  made  ready  for  a  second  planting  right 
away,  and  declared  it  a  goodly  land,  where  a 
very  thin  slice  of  autumn  was  sandwiched  be 
tween  two  summers,  and  decreed  a  Thanksgiving, 
and  called  the  neighbors  together,  and  lifted  up 
their  voices  and  sang  some  such  quaint  song  as — 

"  Ye  monsters  of  the  bubbling  deep, 

Your  Maker's  praises  spout ; 
Up  from  your  sands,  ye  codlings,  peep, 
And  wag  your  tails  about  ! " 

and  clasped  each  other's  hands,  and  feasted 
abundantly,  and  took  u  a  cup  of  kindness,"  and 
grew  so  warm  with  what  they  had  and  what 
they  would  have,  that  when  Euroclydon  and  all 
the  rest  of  them  did  come,  and  that  right  early, 
their  gratitude  never  froze,  but  wintered  it 
through ;  and  so  Thanksgiving  remains  even  until 
now. 

Dear  Starry  Day,  when  three  generations  met 
together  and  —  not  to  betray  confidences — "right 
eousness  and  peace  kissed  each  other."  What 
friendships  were  brightened  in  thy  fire-light ! 
what  wrongs  were  roasted  under  thy  fore-stick ! 
Thy  turnovers  are  imperishable  as  the  Plei 
ades.  Thy  chickens  of  the  nankeen  legs  tucked 
up  in  a  coverlet  of  crust,  and,  brooded  in  the 
bake-kettle  by  its  great  coal-laden  cover,  how 
comfortable  they  were !  Out  of  the  glowing 


MY  STARRY  DAYS,  187 

cavern  of  the  brick  oven,  squatted  in  the  wall 
beside  the  fireplace  like  an  exaggerated  cat,  what 
gusts  of  fragrance  from  thy  turkeys,  breasted  like 
dead  knights  in  armor,  "  whose  souls  are  with 
the  saints,  we  trust ;"  what  whiffs  of  Indian 
pudding !  what  blended  breezes  of  abundance ! 
Thy  doughnuts  of  orthodox  twist,  and  tinted  like 
cedar  wood,  yet  heap  the  bright  tin  pans  of 
memory.  Thy  mighty  V's  of  mince  pies  yet  slant 
to  the  angle  of  perfect  content,  and  fit  and  fill 
the  mouth  of  recollection. 

Surely  heart  and  stomach  are  next-door  neigh 
bors,  for  now,  Thanksgiving,  thy  dear  old  faces 
smile  a  welcome  home  ;  thy  dear  old  faces,  every 
one  unchanged,  undimmed,  unsent  away.  Rouse 
the  fire  to  a  hearty  roar  of  greeting !  Wheel 
out  the  great  table  laden  like  the  palm  of  Prov 
idence.  Bring  forth  the  empty  chairs.  Let  us 
"  ask  a  blessing  !  "  Let  us  give  thanks ! 

CHRISTMAS. 

METHUSELAH  died  pretty  well  along  in  his 
years  of  discretion,  but  a  world  at  his  age  would 
hardly  have  been  out  of  its  swaddling  bands. 
There  is  a  star,  less  than  two  thousand  years  old, 
that  lights  a  day  for  us,  the  fairest,  youngest 
of  all  the  spangled  multitude  —  the  very  Benja 
min  of  Heaven.  The  telescope  of  the  astronomer 


188  BAGGAGE. 

never  summoned  it.  Numbered  in  the  celestial 
census,  I  am  sure  it  will  not  be  there  when  the 
constellations  are  rolled  together  as  a  scroll.  It 
is  immortal  as  the  candle  of  the  Lord.  It  is  the 
Star  in  the  East  that  lights  up  CHKISTMAS  for 
us  with  a  wonderful  radiance. 

If  there  is  ever  a  time  in  all  the  year  when 
the  two  worlds  touch,  I  think  it  is  Christmas 
Eve.  What  less  than  a  first  small  act  of  faith 
is  that  hanging  a  million  of  empty  stockings  by 
a  million  pins  at  night,  and  then  tumbling  the 
trundle-beds  of  Christendom  with  the  delightful 
and  sleepless  expectancy  that  they  will  find  them 
all  filled  in  the  morning  ?  Let  a  man  play  Saturn 
and  eat  his  children  and  be  done  with  it ;  but 
let  him  not  set  a  dog  on  their  angels  —  a  cur 
of  a  fact,  that  should  have  been  born  with  its 
nose  in  a  muzzle,  upon  Santa  Claus  or  Kriss 
Kringle,  and  worry  him  out  of  the  children's 
sweet  kingdom  of  dreams. 

Whoever  wants  to  make  his  children  older  than 
any  wholesome  grandfather  ought  to  be,  has  only 
to  strip  the  world  stark  naked  before  their  faces; 
bare  all  its  exquisite  mystery  that  keeps  one  pair 
of  burnished  interrogation-points  for  ever  dancing 
in  another  pair  of  eyes,  resolve  the  thrones  and 
paradises  and  angels  they  see  in  the  plighted 
clouds,  into  a  heavy  and  delusive  fog ;  and,  by- 
and-by,  for  the  quicksilverish  atoms  of  humanity 


MY  STARRY  DAYS.  189 

that  hunt  out  every  grain  of  true  gold  in  the 
rubbish  of  life,  full  of  marvel  and  fancy  and 
poetry  as  any  old  ballad,  he  will  have  a  row  of 
little  desiccated,  unspeculative,  philosophical  don 
keys  all  draped  in  wet  blankets. 

I  visited,  not  long  ago,  the  house  where  some 
thing  happened  to  me  when  I  narrowly  escaped 
being  too  young  to  be  counted,  but  you  can  never 
guess  what  was  the  first  thing  I  looked  for.  It 
was  not,  as  you  might  think,  the  threshold  worn 
smooth  and  beautiful  by  the  touch  of  feet  that 
have  played  truant  forever,  nor  the  dear  home 
room  with  its  altar-place  for  beech  and  maple 
offerings,  nor  yet  the  nook  of  darkness  under  the 
stairs  where  goblins  and  ogres  held  sweet  coun 
sel  together  by  night. 

It  was  only  the  old  chimney-top  my  eyes  first 
sought,  to  whose  rugged  edges  and  sooty  mouth 
piece  a  thousand  boatswain  winds  had  put  their 
lips  and  whistled  up  the  storms  for  eighty  years. 
It  was  the  homeliest  structure  that  ever  seemed 
beautiful  to  anybody.  Shall  I  tell  you  why  ? 
Down  that  chimney  the  angel  descended  with 
my  first  Christmas  gift.  What  was  the  ladder 
of  Jacob  to  me  then,  has  turned,  at  last,  into  a 
rude  unlettered  monument  to  the  dead  past. 

They  whom  I  surprised  with  my  "  Merry 
Christmas,"  in  the  gray  of  the  morning,  have 
gone  away  for  the  everlasting  holidays.  The 


190 


B  A  G  G  A  GE . 


children  with  whom  I  joined  hands  and  hearts 
are  —  ivliere  are  they?  There  are  fences  in  the 
graveyard  tipped  with  funeral  urns  of  black. 
There  are  broken  slabs  of  marble  bearing  names 
that  have  fallen  out  of  human  speech.  There 
are  hard,  grim  men.  There  are  meek  and  sad- 
eyed  women,  full  of  care.  Has  the  sparkle  of 
life  utterly  vanished  from  the  cup  ?  Can  the 
sleigh-bells'  chime  and  the  glittering  nights  and 
the  laugh  of  young  girls  and  the  measure  of  old 
songs  charm  no  more  ? 

Oh,  Comrades !  oh,  Sweethearts  !  Let  me  give 
you  a  touch  of  the  time  when  happiness  was  the 
very  cheapest  thing  in  the  round  world:  let  me 
give  you  "  a  merry  Christmas ?'  out  of  the  lone 
liness  ! 

But  children  are  not  out  of  fashion,  and  so 
the  world  is  not  bankrupt.  Herod  —  he  deserves 
the  compliment  and  he  shall  have  it  —  Herod 
was  nothing  less  than  devilish  shrewd  when  he 
fancied  he  could  quench  Christmas  in  the  blood 
'of  the  children;  for  if  ever  two  things  were 
made  for  each  other,  a  merry  child  and  a  merry 
Christmas  are  the  two. 

What  the  poor  creatures  did  that  were  born 
and  grown  before  the  clock  of  the  Christian  era 
struck  "one"  nobody  can  tell.  We  all  need  such 
days  —  the  young  that  they  may  never  grow  old ; 


MY  STARRY  DAYS.  191 

the  old  that  they  may  always  be  young.  I  think 
it  might  be  written  among  the  beatitudes : 

"  Blessed  are  they  whose  sons  are  all  boys  and 
whose  daughters  are  all  girls." 

It  was  when  Caesar  Augustus  decreed  that  "all 
the  world"  should  be  enrolled  —  an  edict  never 
to  be  repeated  on  the  planet  until  the  coming 
of  the  Seventh  Angel  —  and  everybody  was  on 
the  move  to  report  in  his  native  city — for  in 
that  country  the  leap  from  a  howling  wilderness 
to  a  city  was  as  easy  as  a  panther's  —  if  it 
did  n't  Tioivl  it  had  a  mayor ! 

Among  those  who  came  to  Bethlehem  on  this 
errand  were  a  man  and  his  wife  from  Nazareth, 
and,  as  the  tavern  was  crowded,  they  went  to 
the  barn,  and  there  the  Chief  of  Children  was 
born,  and  cradled  in  a  manger. 

And   that   was   the   first   Christmas. 

There  were  Angels  without,  who  brought  their 
glory  with  them,  and  they  stood  and  sang, 
"  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth 
peace  to  the  men  of  good  will ! " 

And   that   was   the   first   Christmas   Carol. 

A  few  Shepherds  watching  their  flocks  not  far 
away  came  just  as  they  were,  in  their  every-day 
clothes,  and  wondered  and  glorified,  and  were 
glad. 

And   that   was   the   first   Christmas    Party. 


192  BAGGAGE. 

Some  travelers  from  the  East  —  and  wise,  as 
you  may  know,  by  the  cardinal  point  —  were 
seeking  the  Christmas,  but  no  one  could  tell 
them  anything,  till  a  STAK  journeyed  on  before, 
and  halted,  like  Gibeon's  sun,  over  where  the 
young  child  was  —  ah,  always  now  as  then,  find 
Christmas  and  a  child  is  not  far  off — and  they 
unfolded  their  treasures,  and  gave  him  gold  and 
frankincense  and  myrrh. 

And   that   was   the    first   Christmas  Gift. 

The  shepherds  are  dead,  the  "wise  men"  are 
East,  and  the  angels  in  Heaven.  But  the  star 
and  the  child  and  the  manger  are  everywhere. 
Come,  let  us  have  a  frolic  together !  Even  the 
turkey  has  a  merry-thought  in  its  breast ;  and 
are  we  not  better  than  a  flock  of  turkeys  ?  Let 
us  advertise  for  a  good  digestion  and  a  downy 
pillow,  and  a  pleasant  dream  and  a  Merry  Christ 
mas.  Let  us  do  it  in  these  words : 

WANTED  —  A  debtor  to  be  forgiven. 
WANTED  —  A  wrong  to  be  forgotten. 
WANTED  —  A  heart  to  be  lightened. 
WANTED  —  A  home  to  be  brightened. 

Wherever  the  Star  halts,  there  shall  be  no  lack 
of  carols.  Bid  the  singers  begin  !  And  the  same 
old  manger  chorus  swells  sweetly  again  — "  On 
earth  peace  to  the  men  of  good  will ! "  Shine 
on,  gentle  Star  !  Merry  Christmas,  Good  Night ! 


"No.    104,163." 


CHAPTER    II. 


"No.    104,163." 

"  THE  great  Mercantile  Library  Enterprise  of 
San  Francisco,"  so  I  read  in  my  evening  paper, 
"  will  positively  distribute  its  prizes  on  the  31st 
of  October.  Tickets,  five  dollars  in  gold." 

And  then  I  turned  to  the  glittering  roll  of 
fortunes.  There  they  were,  heaped  up  in  an 
auriferous  pyramid  curiously  balanced  on  its  apex. 
At  the  bottom  lay  a  poor  little  "  $100  in  gold,"  - 
not  worth  minding,  and  up  swelled  the  shining 
structure,  -  $1,000  —  $5,000  —  $10,000  —  $25,000  — 
$50,000  —  until  away  at  the  top  blazed  clear 
across  the  column, 

"$100,000     IN    GOLD!" 

All  gold  from  the  land  of  Gold,  the  unearthed 
Ophir  of  the  Solomonic  time.  Everything  had  a 
bilious  tint.  It  was  as  if  I  was  seeing  creation 
through  an  Oriental  topaz.  I  felt  for  my  ears, 
lest  I  had  somehow  swapped  with  Midas  for  his 

25 


BAGGAGE 

transmuting  touch.  No  railway  conductor  was 
ever  more  clamorous  for  tickets  than  my  heart 
was.  Gold  was  113  that  day,  so  I  counted  out 
$5.65,  turned  it  into  a  Post-office  order,  and 
transmitted  it  to  the  nearest  agent.  The  ticket 
came,  a  strip  of  paper  tawny  as  the  Tiber,  a 
faint  reflection  of  "  great  heaps  of  gold,"  as 
Clarence  said,  but  not  to  drown  for,  as  Clarence 
did.  It  was  covered  with  "  a  strange  device " — 
the  ticket  was  —  like  the  handkerchief  the  Alpine 
traveler  carried  in  his  hand,  who  talked  Latin 
and  cried  "Excelsior!" 

To  think  what  splendid  possibilities  might  lurk 
in  that  oblong  piece  of  paper  was  enough  to 
take  one's  breath  away !  I  said  not  a  word  to 
Lucy  —  that's  my  wife  —  but  folded  it  tenderly, 
as  if  it  were  a  napkin  with  ten  talents  in  it, 
and  laid  it  away  with  a  gold  half  dollar  and  a 
broken  ring  and  a  curl  of  hair  and  a  stray  pearl 
that  had  tumbled  out  of  an  old  brooch,  and  a 
bit  of  ribbon  and  a  faint  suspicion  of  dead  and 
gone  fragrance  —  "all  and  singular"  the  con 
tents  of  a  little  box  that,  forty  years  ago,  would 
have  been  a  "  till "  in  the  upper  right-hand  cor^ 
ner  of  a  chest  of  drawers,  and  as  nearly  like  an 
old-fashioned  heart  as  two  things  can  be  that 
are  made  to  hold  the  same  sort  of  little  trinkets 
of  love  and  memory  that  everybody  else  foregoes 
and  forgets. 


"No.    104,163."  195 

The  ticket  lay  there  a  month  and  I  never  said 
a  word,  but  I  began  to  get  my  money  back 
right  away.  I  tripped  up  the  rounds  of  the 
golden  ladder  every  day,  and,  strange  to  tell,  I 
was  totally  unable  to  stop  going  up  until  I 
reached  the  top  and  stood  with  both  feet  perched 
upon  "f  100,000  in  gold."  I  tried  to  steady  my 
self  a  little  and  be  persuaded  that  $25,000  would 
be  comfortable.  I  did  my  best  to  cultivate  a 
sentiment  of  respect  for  $50,000,  but  the  paltry 
sum  sank  below  the  horizon,  and  like  the  Spaniard 
overwhelmed  at  sight  of  the  sea,  who  went  down 
upon  his  knees  on  Gilboa  or  somewhere,  I 
saw  nothing  but  the  golden  ocean  of  $100,000. 
And  why  not  ?  Was  not  the  one  quite  as  easy 
to  get  as  the  other  ?  To  be  sure,  in  the  glow 
of  my  story  the  capital  prize  that  stood  upon 
its  head  as  a  pyramid,  has  been  fashioned  into  a 
ladder  like  Jacob's,  with  the  angels  of  Imagin 
ation  and  Fancy  going  up  and  down  thereon, 
and  at  last  all  melted  into  a  sea,  has  inundated 
the  whole  landscape ;  but  I  tell  you  a  man  with 
a  hundred  thousand  dollars  may  defy  rhetoric 
and  mixed  metaphors  with  impunity. 

I  thought  I  would  make  my  will,  and  "  give 
and  bequeath  to  my  well-beloved  wife  Lucy" 
fifty  thousand  dollars.  When  I  had  counted  this 
out  by  itself,  the  heap  of  gold  glittered  so  that 
it  dazzled  me  out  of  my  discretion,  and  I  asked 


196  BAGGAGE. 

Lucy,  in  a  quiet  way,  whether  if  I  had  $100,000 
in  gold  and  should  will  her  fifty  thousand  free 
and  clear,  it  would  be  enough.  She  laughed  an(? 
said  she  thought  it  would  be  liberal !  I  then 
told  her  what  I  had  done.  Now,  Lucy  is  pretty 
square-cornered  mentally,  but  she  comes  of  a 
stock  on  the  mother's  side  somewhat  given  to 
dreaming.  That  mother  of  hers  —  she  is  seventy- 
six  if  she  is  a  day  —  will  see  as  much  beauty  in 
the  sky  and  breathe  the  fragrance  of  the  apple- 
blossoms  with  as  fresh  a  pleasure  as  if  the  world 
were  only  sixteen  years  old,  and  world  and  woman 
were  born  twins.  She  will  sit  down  any  time 
upon  a  damp  bank  of  crimson  and  gold  cloud 
that  flanks  the  sunset,  and  never  think  of  taking 
cold  more  than  she  did  forty  years  ago.  She  is 
always  seeing  faces  in  the  fire,  and  laying  plans 
that  will  never  be  hatched,  and  altogether  has  a 
thousand  luxuries  that  the  tax-gatherer  can  not 
possibly  get  into  his  schedule.  Lucy  betrays  her 
lineage.  When  I  give  her  a  "ten"  sometimes, 
she  will  fold  her  arms,  swing  slowly  to  and  fro 
in  the  rocking-chair,  and  pay  it  all  out  over  and 
over,  and  get  her  money's  worth  in  ever  so  many 
things  useful  and  beautiful,  and  the  green-backed 
decimal  will  be  snugly  lying  all  the  while  in 
that  same  box  of  momentous  trifles.  I  think  ten 
dollars  go  as  far  with  Lucy  as  twenty-five  do 


"No.    104,163."  197 

with  most  people,  and  by  the  same  sign  make 
her  two  and  a  half  times  as  happy. 

"Port" — that  is  the  name  of  my  boy  —  saw 
not  a  glimmer  of  gold  for  days  and  days  after 
Lucy  had  her  saffronian  vision.  He  toiled  on  like 
Bunyan's  fellow  with  the  muck-rake  at  his  call 
ing,  nor  saw  the  angel,  golden  even  as  a  sun 
flower,  that  floated  overhead.  It  seemed  a  pity 
to  wrong  him  out  of  his  inheritance,  and  so  I 
told  him.  I  said,  "  Port,  we  are  a  rich  family," 
and  showed  him  the  strip  of  paper.  He  ticked 
off  the  figures  slowly,  like  a  clock  just  running 
down,  1-0-4-1-6-3,  and  said — nothing.  I  thought 
he  lacked  gratitude,  and  so  I  made  a  plunge 
into  the  dark  ages  for  something  to  punish  him 
with,  and  came  up  with  the  brand-new  fact  that 
ingratitude  is  a  crime  so  base  the  ancients  never 
thought  it  worth  while  to  make  a  law  against 
it,  as  nobody,  probably,  would  ever  be  guilty  of 
it.  "  Port "  went  out,  and  I  at  once  set  about 
erasing  the  last  cypher  of  the  bequest  I  had 
made  the  boy,  so  that  what  had  read  $1 0,000 
became  $1,000,  and  I  devised  all  the  rest  for  the 
cultivation  of  gratitude  in  the  human  family. 

Meanwhile  the  days  grew  shorter  and  shorter, 
like  the  strings  of  David's  harp,  and  October 
was  about  done,  and  the  drawing  was  at  hand. 
But  what  mattered  it  all  ?  We  had  entered  into 


198  BAGGAGE. 

possession  already.  We  had  invested  one  hundred 
thousand  of  the  prize  in  the  best  of  securities, 
and  we  were  receiving  eight  thousand  dollars  a 
year,  for  you  see  it  was  $100,000  in  gold,  to- 
wit :  $113,000  in  greenbacks.  We  owed  no  man 
anything.  We  had  traveled  all  over  the  broad 
domain  of  Columbus'  magnificent  "  find."  We 
had  given  two  thousand  dollars  a  year  to  objects 
of  benevolence.  We  had  bought  exquisite  works 
of  art,  and  sent  a  dozen  poor  painters  of  good 
pictures  abroad.  We  had  imported  rare  old  Eng 
lish  books  and  strewn  them  upon  our  tables  and 
given  them  to  our  neighbors.  We  presented  an 
illustrated  copy  of  "Paradise  Lost"  to  our  wood- 
sawyer  one  day,  a  copy  reinforced  like  his 
breeches,  with  leather,  and  he  was  very  grateful, 
and  sat  down  upon  it  when  he  ate  his  bread 
and  cheese  and  said  it  was  "good,"  and  we 
were  gratified.  We  purchased  a  sober  horse  and 
a  modest  carriage,  and  propped  up  the  line  fence 
and  shingled  the  kitchen.  In  a  word,  the  gaunt 
wolf  I  had  been  trying  for  years  to  keep  away 
from  the  door,  had  been  brained  at  last  with  a 
golden  club,  and  his  skin  lay  upon  the  carriage 
floor  for  a  foot-robe. 

There  was  a  legion  ol  people  we  wanted  to 
help  —  a  great  many  of  them  when  we  first  be 
gan,  and  I  told  Lucy  to  get  a  quire  of  paper 
and  make  a  catalogue,  but  somehow  or  other  they 


"No.   104,163."  199 

got  fewer  as  we  thought  about  it,  until  she  num 
bered  every  one  upon  her  fingers  that  seemed  to 
have  much  hold  upon  our  affections.  Those  I 
pensioned  off  in  the  most  liberal  manner,  and 
had  quite  a  warm  and  genial  feeling  about  my 
heart,  as  if  I  had  really  been  beneficent  and  done 
something,  when  I  had  only  been  benevolent  and 
wished  something.  We  had  two  or  three  wealthy 
neighbors  who  had  gathered  richness  as  damp 
logs  gather  moss,  and  that  was  about  all  there 
was  of  it  —  aggregating  golden  egg  after  golden 
egg,  flattening  themselves  out  like  an  incubating 
goose  ambitious  to  cover  the  whole  nest,  and 
calling  the  proceeding  "  enterprise."  I  would  set 
these  mossy  fellows  an  example  that  should  re 
buke  them  to  the  tips  of  their  ears.  And  so  I 
gave  twenty  thousand  dollars  for  a  public  library 
to  be  free  to  all  residents  of  the  town  forever. 
We  had  made  Christmas  "  merry "  and  New  Year 
"happy"  for  many  a  heart  that  would  else  have 
had  neither  one  nor  the  other. 

I  am  glad  now  to  be  able  to  state  that  there 
was  only  one  man  whom  I  had  the  least  desire 
to  humble  when  I  became  an  hundred  thousand 
strong,  and  he  was  an  insurance  agent  —  a  retired 
doctor,  who,  growing  weary  of  saving  lives  with 
pills,  had  taken  to  insuring  lives  with  policies. 
He  was  always  tormenting  me  "  to  insure."  He 
looked  me  over  like  an  undertaker  with  a  mea- 


200  BAGGAGE. 

sure  in  his  eye.  He  kept  me  constantly  reminded 
of  the  'fact  of  death,  as  if  it  were  inevitable.  I 
hardly  ever  saw  him  that  I  did  not  fancy  him 
rushing  around  to  my  widow  the  next  day  after 
I  had  won  the  wager,  paying  her  the  amount  of 
insurance,  and  thence  away  to  the  printing  office 
with  a  card  flickering  in  his  hand,  inscribed  with 
words  and  figures  following,  to-wit : 

AGENT  OF  THE  So-AND-So  INSURANCE  Co.: 

I  thank  you  for  the  prompt  payment  of  the  sum  of  $10,000, 
for  which  amount  you  had  insured  my  late  husband's  life. 

Gratefully,  LUCY. 

Late  husband  indeed  !  The  pulses  of  a  pound 
of  cold  putty  are  lively  compared  with  my  cir 
culation  at  the  idea  of  that  sort  of  "late"  — 
too  late  ever  to  be  again  "  on  time."  Well,  all 
I  want  of  that  doctor  is  that  he  shall  solicit  me 
once  more,  when  I  will  say,  "  Insure  ?  Do  I 
look  like  a  man  who  needs  help  for  his  perish 
ing  family?  Examine  my  will — Lucy,  $50,000! 
4  Port,'  $20,000  !  Accept  an  invitation  to  my 
Free  Library.  Be  silent  and  be  happy.  Good 
morning,"  and  with  this  nightcap  for  his  impor 
tunity,  I  would  pass  graciously  on  like  a  great 
harvest-moon  when  it  gives  the  last  touch  to  the 
ripening  regiments  of  corn. 

And  the  thirty-first  of  October  came  at  last, 
and  the  supreme  hour  for  the  turn  of  the  wheel 


"No.    104,163."  201 

away  there  in  the  city  of  the  Golden  Gate,  but 
what  should  I  care  ?  The  capital  prize  had  all 
been  won,  and  invested,  and  given  away  and  ex 
pended.  I  had  rehearsed  the  fortune  and  it  had 
Left  no  corroding  care  —  that  word  "corroding," 
heart-gnawing  it  ought  to  mean ;  think  of  a  lively 
rodent,  say  a  squirrel,  in  a  beating  heart !  —  had 
kindled  no  passion,  scattered  no  Greek  fire  of 
pride  or  envy  anywhere.  What  more  need  I  de 
sire,  and  yet  I  could  hardly  help  wondering  if 
they  knew  I  had  purchased  the  ticket  104,163 ; 
whether  when — not  if,  for  there  is  never  an  "if" 
in  the  land  of  dreams  and  of  Spain  —  when  the 
capital  prize  should  be  declared  off  to  me  out  of 
the  great  wheel,  they  would  not  telegraph  me  at 
once  from  San  Francisco,  for  I  certainly  would  pay 
the  expense  without  a  murmur.  I  went  to  the 
door  once  or  twice  to  see  if  the  telegraph  mes 
senger  might  not  be  coming,  and  I  at  once  gave 
him  one  hundred  dollars  in  gold.  But  night  dis 
tanced  the  telegram  and  reached  me  first.  Pos 
sibly,  though,  the  agent  in  Chicago  may  write 
me  by  the  evening  mail,  and  I  gave  one  hun 
dred  dollars  in  gold  to  the  man  that  licked  the 
envelope,  and  one  hundred  dollars  in  gold  to  the 
man  who  delivered  the  letter.  But  the  mail  came 
and  the  letter  did  not.  I  was  sorry  for  the  loss 
the  clerk  in  the  post  -  office  had  suffered,  and 
made  up  my  mind  to  make  him  librarian  of  my 


202  BAGGAGE. 

Free  Library  at  a  salary  of  a  thousand  dollars 
a  year. 

Along  in  the  evening  Lucy  and  I  had  a  little 
discussion  as  to  whether  we  should  not  take  the 
prize  in  gold,  say  double  eagles,  and  put  them 
all  to  roost  on  the  dining  table,  and  call  in  a 
few  friends  to  see  the  golden  aviary  with  its 
blessed  birds  of  Paradise,  and  borrow  the  neigh 
bor's  steelyards,  as  somebody  did  in  the  touching 
story  of  the  "  Forty  Thieves,"  or  some  other 
Arabian  Night's  entertainment,  and  weigh  the 
hundred  thousand  avoirdupois,  and  then  send  it 
back  to  Chicago  and  have  the  dead  metal  return 
all  in  full  leaf,  green  as  Valambrosa,  say  an  hun 
dred  1,000-dollar  bills,  or  a  thousand  100-dollar 
bills,  Lucy  and  I  could  hardly  tell  which. 

The  first  of  November  dawned  as  brightly  as 
November  ever  dawns,  and  with  it  came  the 
tidings  that  my  "  $100,000  in  gold "  had  some 
how,  by  mistake  no  doubt,  been  drawn  by  some 
body  else,  and  that  ticket  104,163  was  worth  — 
well  —  about  a  twist  for  a  cigar  -  lighter  !  My 
imagination  slipped  down  the  golden  ladder  that, 
like  the  Patriarch's,  had  an  angel  at  the  top  and 
a  pillow  of  stone  at  the  bottom  —  slipped  down 
from  its  high  estate  and  made  a  Rachel  of  itself, 
"  and  would  not  be  comforted."  I  left  the  par 
lor,  where  I  had  been  sitting  for  the  last  month 
because  I  thought  I  could  afford  to,  and  went 


"No.   104,163."  203 

away  disconsolate  into  the  kitchen,  but  "Willie," 
the  mocking  bird,  was  singing  a  pleasant  song. 
I  returned  to  the  parlor  and  Lucy,  the  heiress  to 
the  half  of  my  fortune,  was  laughing  a  pleasant 
laugh,  arid  "  Port,"  whom  I  had  forgiven  in  a 
codicil,  and  left  $20,000,  said  he  did  not  care  a 
"  Continental "  for  the  whole  business,  which, 
considering  that  Continental  currency,  toward  the 
last  of  it,  was  sold  low,  at  about  so  much  a  peck, 
"  dry  measure,"  may  be  taken  as  a  pretty  for 
cible  expression  of  his  perfect  cheerfulness  under 
the  disaster. 

But  was  it  a  disaster  ?  Had  I  not  had  the 
prize,  and  enjoyed  it  and  shared  it  and  bequeathed 
it  ?  My  fortune  had  never  tempted  a  thief.  It 
had  neither  pat  the  prayer  of  the  Lord  nor  of 
Agur  out  of  fashion :  "  Give  us  this  day  our 
daily  bread  !  "  "  Give  me  neither  poverty  nor 
riches!"  So  far  as  I  have  heard,  "104,168" 
was  the  lucky  number  after  all,  and  I  certainly 
believe  nobody  ever  before  received  so  much  for 
so  little  —  $100,000  in  imperishable  gold  for  five 
dollars  and  sixty  -  five  cents,  true  coin  of  the 
realm  of  an  imagination  and  a  fancy  both  warmed 
into  a  life  curiously  fresh  and  new  by  the  touch 
of  a  hope,  never  to  be  realized,  of  mere  mate 
rial  wealth. 

"One  blast  upon  a  bugle  horn," — if  we  may 
trust  a  man  who  was  more  conscientious  in  the 


204  BAGGAGE. 

telling  of  fiction  than  most  men  are  in  relating 
the  truth, —  was  "worth  a  thousand  men."  Jeri 
cho  came  down  at  the  blast  of  a  horn. 

Fame's  shall  give  breath,  and  all  the  land 
shall  give  heed.  Gabriel's  shall  sound,  and  the 
dead  shall  be  intent.  But  cornucopia  the  golden 
is  the  exalted  horn  among  the  nations.  They 
always  see  the  glittering  millions  lavished  from 
the  broader  end  that  flares  and  blossoms-  like  a 
tulip,  but  it  is  strange  they  do  not  oftener  dis 
cern  the  diminished  man  coming  out  at  the  other 
and  the  lesser  end  of  the  self -same  horn.  The 
wealth  may  make  a  ladder  and  rig  it  out  with 
rounds  commanding  loftier  planes  and  broader 
views,  but  there  must  be  a  foot  bold  enough  to 
climb  them,  and  a  brain  balanced  enough  to  re 
gard  the  grander  horizons  and  the  growing  lights 
undizzied  and  undazzled,  and  a  heart  true  enough 
to  be  touched  and  softened  and  kindled  by  it 
all  into  the  living  belief  that  these  words  are 
worthy  of  all  acceptation :  "  Faith,  Hope,  Charity 
—  these  three,  but  the  GREATEST  of  these  is 
Charity."  A  belief  lodged  in  the  head  is  there, 
but  a  belief  lodged  in  the  heart  is  everywhere. 

As  for  Lucy  and  I,  our  "  castles  in  Spain "  are 
all  builded  and  peopled,  the  lawns  around  them 
are  Elysian,  the  sky  above  them  is  clear  heaven, 
sunshine  plays  forever  around  their  purple  towers. 
Let  us  make  fast  the  door  against  the  wolf  we 


"No.    104,163."  205 

thought  we  had  killed  with  a  bludgeon  of  gold, 
and  betake  ourselves  again  with  cheerfulness  and 
content  to  our  possessions  in  Spain  —  ours  for 
ever  and  a  day  by  the  power  of  the  charm  that 
lay  hid  in  the  ticket  I  purchased — and  Lucy, 
"  Port"  and  I  do  earnestly  wish  that  all  the 
readers  of  this  chapter  from  life,  if  they  do  not 
draw  the  Capital  Prize,  may  at  least  gain  that 
next  best  thing — the  treasure  wrapped  up,  like 
a  rose  in  a  bud,  in  Number  104,163. 


206  BAGGAGE. 


CHAPTER  III. 


OUR  OLD  GRANDMOTHER. 

•4 1  FIND  the  marks  of  my  shortest  steps  beside 
those  of  my  beloved  mother,  which  were  meas 
ured  by  my  own,"  says  Dumas,  and  so  conjures 
up  one  of  the  sweetest  images  in  the  world.  He 
was  revisiting  the  home  of  his  infancy ;  he  was 
retracing  the  little  paths  around  it  in  which  he 
had  once  walked  ;  and  strange  flowers  could  not 
efface,  and  rank  grass  could  not  conceal,  and 
cruel  ploughs  could  not  obliterate,  his  "  shortest 
footsteps,"  and  his  mother's  beside  them,  meas 
ured  by  his  own. 

And  who  needs  to  be  told  whose  footsteps 
they  were  that  thus  kept  time  with  the  feeble 
pattering  of  childhood's  little  feet  ?  It  was  no 
mother  beside  whom  Ascanius  walked  "  with  equal 
steps  "  in  Virgil's  line,  but  a  strong,  stern  man, 
who  could  have  borne  him  and  not  been  bur 
dened  ;  folded  him  in  his  arms  from  all  danger 
and  not  been  wearied ;  everything,  indeed,  he 
could  have  done  for  him,  but  just  what  he  needed 


OUR   OLD   GRANDMOTHER.  207 

most — could  not  sympathize  with  him  —  he  could 
not  be  a  child  again.  Ah,  a  rare  art  is  that, — 
for,  indeed,  it  is  an  art,  to  set  back  the  great 
old  clock  of  time  and  be  a  boy  once  more  !  Man's 
imagination  can  easily  see  the  child  a  man  ;  but 
how  hard  it  is  for  it  to  see  the  man  a  child  ; 
and  he  who  had  learned  to  glide  back  into  that 
rosy  time  when  he  did  not  know  that  thorns 
were  under  the  roses,  or  that  clouds  would  ever 
return  after  the  rain ;  when  he  thought  a  tear 
could  stain  a  cheek  no  more  than  a  drop  of 
rain  a  flower ;  when  he  fancied  that  life  had  no 
disguise,  and  hope  no  blight  at  all  —  has  come 
as  near  as  anybody  can  to  discovering  the  North 
west  passage  to  Paradise. 

And  it  is,  perhaps,  for  this  reason  that  it  is  so 
much  easier  for  a  mother  to  enter  the  kingdom 
of  Heaven  than  it  is  for  the  rest  of  the  world. 
She  fancies  she  is  leading  the  children,  when, 
after  all,  the  children  are  leading  her,  and  they 
keep  her,  indeed,  where  the  river  is  narrowest, 
and  the  air  is  clearest ;  and  the  beckoning  of  the 
radiant  band  is  so  plainly  seen  from  the  other 
side,  that  it  is  no  wonder  she  so  often  lets  go  her 
clasp  upon  the  little  finger  she  is  holding,  and 
goes  over  to  the  neighbor's,  and  the  children  fol 
low  like  lambs  to  the  fold  ;  for  we  think  it  ought 
somewhere  to  be  written:  "Where  the  mother 
is,  there  will  the  children  be  also." 


208  BAGGAGE. 

But  it  was  not  of  the  mother,  but  of  the  dear 
old-fashioned  grandmother,  whose  thread  of  love 
spun  "by  hand"  on  life's  little  wheel>  and  longer 
and  stronger  than  they  make  it  now^  was  wound 
around  and  about  the  children  she  saw  playing 
in  the  children's  arms,  in  a  true  love-knot  that 
nothing  but  the  shears  of  Atropos  could  sever; 
for  do  we  not  recognize  the  lambs  sometimes, 
when  summer  days  are  over  and  autumn  winds 
are  blowing,  as  they  come  bleating  from  the  yel 
low  fields,  by  the  crimson  thread  we  wound  about 
their  necks  in  April  or  May,  and  so  undo  the 
gate  and  let  the  wanderers  in  ? 

Blessed  be  the  children  who  have  an  old-fash 
ioned  grandmother.  As  they  hope  for  length  of 
days  let  them  love  and  honor  her,  for  we  can 
tell  them  they  will  never  find  another. 

There  is  a  large  old  kitchen  somewhere  in  the 
past,  and  an  old-fashioned  fireplace  therein,  with 
its  smooth  old  jambs  of  stone  —  smooth  with 
many  knives  that  have  been  sharpened  there  — 
smooth  with  many  little  fingers  that  have  clung 
there.  There  are  andirons,  too  —  the  old  andirons, 
with  rings  in  the  top,  whereon  many  temples  of 
flame  have  been  builded,  with  spires  and  turrets 
of  crimson.  There  is  a  broad,  worn  hearth,  worn 
by  feet  that  have  been  torn  and  bleeding  by 
the  way,  or  been  made  "  beautiful,"  and  walked 
upon  floors  of  tesselated  gold.  There  are  tongs 


OUR   OLD   GRANDMOTHER.  209 

in  the  corner,  wherewith  we  grasped  a  coal,  and 
"blowing  for  a  little  life,"  lighted  our  first  can 
dle  ;  there  is  a  shovel,  wherewith  were  drawn 
forth  the  glowing  embers  in  which  we  saw  our 
first  fancies  and  dreamed  our  first  dreams  —  the 
shovel  with  which  we  stirred  the  sleepy  logs  till 
the  sparks  rushed  up  the  chimney  as  if  a  forge 
were  in  blast  below,  and  wished  we  had  so  many 
lambs,  so  many  marbles,  or  so  many  somethings 
that  we  coveted ;  and  so  it  was  we  wished  our 
first  wishes. 

There  is  a  chair  —  a  low,  rush-bottom  chair  ; 
there  is  a  little  wheel  in  the  corner,  a  big  wheel 
in  the  garret,  a  loom  in  the  chamber.  There 
are  chests  full  of  linen  and  yarn,  and  quilts  of 
rare  pattern,  and  samples  in  frames. 

And  everywhere  and  always  the  dear  eld  wrink 
led  face  of  her  whose  firm,  elastic  step  mocks 
the  feeble  saunter  of  her  children's  children  — 
the  old-fashioned  grandmother  of  twenty  years 
ago.  She,  the  very  Providence  of  the  old  home 
stead — she  who  loved  us  all,  and  said  she  wished 
there  were  more  of  us  to  love,  and  took  all  the 
school  in  the  Hollow  for  grand-children  besides. 
A  very  expansive  heart  was  hers,  beneath  that 
woolen  gown,  or  that  more  stately  bombazine,  or 
that  sole  heir-loom  of  silken  texture. 

We  can  see  her  to-day,  those  mild  blue  eyes, 
with  more  of  beauty  in  them  than  time  could 

27* 


210  BAGGAGE. 

touch  or  death  do  more  than  hide-— those  eyes 
that  held  both  smiles  and  tears  within  the  faint 
est  call  of  every  one  of  us,  and  soft  reproof,  that 
seemed  not  passion  but  regret.  A  white  tress 
has  escaped  from  beneath  her  snowy  cap ;  she 
has  just  restored  a  wandering  lamb  to  its  mother ; 
she  lengthened  the  tether  of  a  vine  that  was 
straying  over  a  window,  as  she  came  in,  and 
plucked  a  four-leaved  clover  for  Ellen.  She  sits 
down  by  the  little  wheel  —  a  tress  is  running 
through  her  fingers  from  the  distaff's  disheveled 
head,  when  a  small  voice  cries  "  Grandma ! " 
from  the  old  red  cradle,  and  "  Grandma  !  " 
Tommy  shouts  from  the  top  of  the  stairs.  Gently 
she  lets  go  the  thread,  for  her  patience  is  almost 
as  beautiful  as  her  charity,  and  she  touches  the 
little  bark  in  a  moment,  till  the  young  voyager 
is  in  a  dream  again,  and  then  directs  Tommy's 
unavailing  attempts  to  harness  the  cat.  The  tick 
of  the  clock  runs  faint  and  low,  and  she  opens 
the  mysterious  door  and  proceeds  to  wind  it  up. 
We  are  all  on  tip  -  toe,  and  we  beg  in  a  breath 
to  be  lifted  up  one  by  one,  and  look  in  the 
hundredth  time  upon  the  tin  cases  of  the  weights, 
and  the  poor  lonely  pendulum,  which  goes  to 
and  fro  by  its  little  dim  window,  and  never 
comes  out  in  the  world,  and  our  petitions  are 
all  granted,  and  we  are  lifted  up,  and  we  all 


OUR   OLD   GRANDMOTHER.  211 

touch  with  a  finger  the  wonderful  weights,  and 
the  music  of  the  little  wheel  is  resumed. 

Was  Mary  to  be  married,  or  Jane  to  be  wrapped 
in  a  shroud  ?  So  meekly  did  she  fold  the  white 
hands  of  the  one  upon  her  still  bosom,  that  there 
seemed  to  be  a  prayer  in  them  there  ;  and  so 
sweetly  did  she  wreathe  the  white  rose  in  the 
hair  of  the  other,  that  one  would  not  have  won 
dered  had  more  roses  budded  for  company. 

How  she  stood  between  us  and  apprehended 
harm ;  how  the  rudest  of  us  softened  beneath 
the  gentle  pressure  of  her  faded  and  tremulous 
hand !  From  her  capacious  pocket  that  hand 
was  ever  withdrawn  closed,  only  to  be  opened 
in  our  own,  with  the  nuts  she  had  gathered,  the 
cherries  she  had  plucked,  the  little  egg  she  had 
found,  the  "turn-over"  she  had  baked,  the  trinket 
she  had  purchased  for  us  as  the  product  of  her 
spinning,  the  blessing  she  had  stored  for  us  — 
the  offspring  of  her  heart. 

What  treasures  of  story  fell  from  those  old 
lips ;  of  good  fairies  and  evil,  of  the  old  times 
when  she  was  a  girl ;  and  we  wondered  if  ever 

—  but  then  she  couldn't   be  handsomer  or  dearer 

—  but   that   she    ever   was    "little."      And    then, 
when  we   begged   her   to   sing !     "  Sing  us  one    of 
the  old  songs  you  used  to  sing  mother,  grandma." 

"  Children,  I  can't  sing,"   she  always  said ;  and 


212  BAGGAGE. 

mother  used  to  lay  her  knitting  softly  down,  and 
the  kitten  stopped  playing  with  the  yarn  upon 
the  floor,  and  the  clock  ticked  lower  in  the  cor 
ner,  and  the  fire  died  down  to  a  glow,  like  an 
old  heart  that  is  neither  chilled  nor  dead,  and 
grandmother  sang.  To  be  sure  it  would  n't  do 
for  the  parlor  and  the  concert-room  now-a-days  ; 
but  then  it  was  the  old  kitchen  and  the  old- 
fashioned  grandmother,  and  the  old  ballad,  in  the 
dear  old  times,  and  we  can  hardly  see  to  write 
for  the  memory  of  them,  though  it  is  a  hand's 
breadth  to  the  sunset. 

Well,  she  sang.  Her  voice  was  feeble  and 
wavering,  like  a  fountain  just  ready  to  fail,  but 
then  how  sweet-toned  it  was ;  and  it  became 
deeper  and  stronger,  but  it  could  n't  grow  sweet 
er.  What  "joy  of  grief"  it  was  to  sit  there 
around  the  fire,  all  of  us,  except  Jane,  that 
clasped  a  prayer  to  her  bosom,  and  her  we  thought 
we  saw,  when  the  hall-door  was  opened  a  mo 
ment  by  the  wind ;  but  then  we  were  not  afraid, 
for  was  n't  it  her  old  smile  she  wore  ?  —  to  sit 
there  around  the  fire,  and  weep  over  the  woes 
of  the  "  Babes  in  the  Wood,"  who  lay  down 
side  by  side  in  the  .great  solemn  shadows;  and 
how  strangely  glad  we  felt  when  the  robin-red 
breast  covered  them  with  leaves,  and  last  of  all 
when  the  angels  took  them  out  of  the  night 
into  Day  Everlasting. 


OUR   OLD   GRANDMOTHER.  213 

We  may  think  what  we  will  of  it  now,  but 
the  song  and  the  story  heard  around  the. kitchen 
fire  have  colored  the  thoughts  and  lives  of  most 
of  us ;  have  given  us  the  germs  of  whatever 
poetry  blesses  our  hearts  ;  whatever  memory  blooms 
in  our  yesterdays.  Attribute  whatever  we  may 
to  the  school  and  the  school-master,  the  rays 
which  make  that  little  day  we  call  life,  radiate 
from  the  God-swept  circle  of  the  hearthstone. 

Then  she  sings  an  old  lullaby  she  sang  to 
mother  —  her  mother  sang  to  her;  but  she  does 
not  sing  it  through,  and  falters  ere  'tis  done. 
She  rests  her  head  upon  her  hands,  and  it  is 
silent  in  the  old  kitchen.  Something  glitters 
down  between  her  fingers  and  the  firelight,  and 
it  looks  like  rain  in  the  soft  sunshine.  The  old 
grandmother  is  thinking  when  she  first  heard  the 
song,  and  of  the  voice  that  sang  it,  when  a 
light-haired  and  light-hearted  girl  she  hung  around 
that  mother's  chair,  nor  saw  the  shadows  of  the 
years  to  come.  O !  the  days  that  are  no  more ! 
What  spell  can  we  weave  to  bring  them  back 
again  ?  What  words  can  we  unsay,  what  deeds 
undo,  to  set  back,  just  this  once,  the  ancient 
clock  of  time  ? 

So  all  our  little  hands  were  forever  clinging 
to  her  garments,  and  staying  her  as  if  from 
dying,  for  long  ago  she  had  done  living  for  her 
self,  and  lived  alone  in  us.  But  the  old  kitchen 


214  BAGGAGE. 

wants  a  presence  to-day,  and  the  rush-bottomed 
chair  is  tenantless. 

How  she  used  to  welcome  us  when  we  were 
grown,  and  came  back  once  more  to  the  home 
stead. 

We  thought  we  were  men  and  women,  but  we 
were  children  there.  The  old-fashioned  grand 
mother  was  blind  in  the  eyes,  but  she  saw  with 
her  heart,  as  she  always  did.  We  threw  our 
long  shadows  through  the  open  door,  and  she  felt 
them  as  they  fell  over  her  form,  and  she  looked 
dimly  up  and  saw  tall  shapes  in  the  door-way, 
and  she  says,  "  Edward  I  know,  and  Lucy's  voice 
I  can  hear,  but  whose  is  that  other  ?  It  must 
be  Jane's,"  for  she  had  almost  forgotten  the 
folded  hands.  "  Oh,  no,  not  Jane,  for  she — let 
me  see  —  she  is  waiting  for  me,  isn't  she?"  and 
the  old  grandmother  wandered  and  wept. 

"  It  is  another  daughter,  grandmother,  that 
Edward  has  brought,"  says  some  one,  "  for  your 
blessing." 

"  Has  she  blue  eyes,  my.  son  ?  Put  her  hand 
in  mine,  for  she  is  my  latest  born,  the  child  of 
my  old  age.  Shall  I  sing  you  a  song,  children?" 
Her  hand  is  in  her  pocket  as  of  old ;  she  is 
idly  fumbling  for  a  toy,  a  welcome  gift  to  the 
children  that  have  come  again. 

"  Come,  children,  sit  around  the  fire.  Shall  I 
sing  you  a  song,  or  tell  you  a  story  ?  Stir  the 


OUR   OLD   GRANDMOTHER.  215 

fire,    for    it    is     cold  ;     the    nights    are    growing 
colder." 

The  clock  in  the  corner  struck  nine,  the  bed 
time  of  those  old  days.  The  song  of  life  was 
indeed  sung,  the  story  told,  it  was  bed-time  at 
last.  Good  night  to  thee,  grandmother!  The 
old-fashioned  grandmother  was  no  more,  and  we 
miss  her  forever.  But  we  wrill  set  up  a  tablet 
in  the  midst  of  the  memory,  in  the  midst  of  the 
heart,  and  write  on  it  only  this  : 

SACRED   TO   THE   MEMORY 

OF     THE 

OLD-FASHIONED     GRANDMOTHER. 

GOD  BLESS  HER  FOR  EVER. 


216  BAGGAGE. 


CHAPTER    IV. 


OUT-DOOR    PREACHING. 

THE   miracle   of  Spring   is   beginning. 

Leafless,  indeed,  stand  the  great  woods,  and 
shivering  in  the  cold  North  wind.  The  joints  of 
rheumatic  oaks  creak  dismally,  and  there  is  a 
moan  in  the  maples.  The  skeleton  orchards  are 
gray  and  brown  upon  the  Southern  slopes,  but 
the  sun  is  shining  and  the  clock  of  Time  ticks 
in  the  heart  of  May.  A  January  fire  rolls  and 
roars  up  the  chimney's  capacious  throat ;  the 
water -pail  is  nightly  glazed  with  ice,  but  the 
birds  are  abroad  and  their  songs  are  in  all  the 
air.  Not  a  wisp  of  hay  remains  in  the  wide, 
'deep  bay  of  the  barn,  and  the  cows  decline  "  to 
give  down,"  and  the  lambs  are  going  where  the 
good  lambs  go,  though  the  lilacs  are  budding 
and  the  willows  have  fringed  the  streams  with 
green. 

How  full  of  the  dear  old  music  of  Summer  are 
wood,  orchard  and  field.  Even  the  great  empty 
barn,  with  its  ribs  of  oak,  is  a-twitter  with  swal- 


OUT. DOOR    PREACHING.  217 

lows  that  dart  in  and  out  at  the  diamond  doors 
in  the  gables,  and  the  mud-walled  cottages  that 
are  built  along  the  rafters.  The  robins  are  sing 
ing  the  self-same  song  they  sang  a  thousand 
years  ago,  and  the  finches  are  untarnished  and 
golden  as  ever.  Down  by  the  marsh  the  bobo'- 
links  are  ringing  their  little  bells,  and  swinging 
to  and  fro  upon  the  little  bushes  that  sway  in 
the  wind.  The  brown  thrushes  have  built  their 
nests  in  the  fence  -  corners  and  the  heaps  of 
brush ;  a  Baltimore  oriole  flickered  like  a  flake 
of  fire  through  the  garden,  this  morning,  and 
drifted  away  behind  the  barn  ;  we  frightened 
up  a  whip-poor-will  yesterday,  from  among 
the  withered  leaves,  and  found  a  blue -bird's 
nest  with  a  single  egg  in  a  hollow  stump  :n 
the  pasture.  A  little  gray  couple  are  busy  build 
ing  in  the  cleft  of  the  bar -post,  and  a  small 
Trojan  in  speckled  jacket  is  about  to  keep  house 
on  the  loaded  end  of  the  well-sweep  that  goes 
up  forty  times  a  day  and  comes  down  with  a 
bang.  Why  did  n't  the  little  idiot  take  up  his 
quarters  in  the  bucket  !  A  fortnight  ago,  John 
hung  his  jacket  upon  the  fence,  and  to-day  he 
shook  out  from  one  of  the  pockets  a  nest,  and 
two  eggs  as  blue  as  the  sky. 

There   is   singing  everywhere :    from  the  tuft  of 
gray    grass    there    comes    a    small    tune    of    two 
notes  and  a   rest,  then  two  more;    from  the   see- 
as 


218  BAGGAGE. 

ond  rail  of  the  feDce  a  gush  of  melody ;  from 
the  roof -ridge,  a  solo ;  from  the  depths  of  the 
air,  as  of  angel  calling  unto  angel.  The  birds 
and  the  buds  make  it  May,  and  May  it  shall  be. 

Yesterday  was  Sunday,  as  clear  and  as  cool  as 
charity,  and  yesterday  I  got  into  good  company 
for  once  in  a  way,  and  went  to  church  in  the 
woods.  The  gray  temple  that  God  built  looked 
dull  and  empty  as  I  approached,  but  as  I  entered, 
the  birds  were  singing  an  anthem  and  Nature 
Jiad  begun  to  work  a  miracle. 

Last  winter  we  floundered  to  the  January  ser 
vice,  and  the  drifts,  how  huge  they  were,  and 
the  white  arms  of  the  forest  were  stretched  out 
in  silent  benediction,  stern  and  cold,  like  the 
blessing-  of  old  Puritans. 

o 

Now,  the  earth  is  strewn  with  withered  leaves 
of  a  gone  summer  that  rustled  articulately  beneath 
the  thoughtful  foot,  and  said,  as  words  can  never 
say  it :  "  In  the  midst  of  life  we  are  in  death," 
and  thus  the  Sermon  began. 

And  then  the  birds  all  around  joined  in  to 
sing,  and  the  wood -dove  to  mourn  with  her 
mate,  and  so  this  passage  of  Scripture  was  read 
out:  "The  winter  is  over  and  gone;  the  time 
of  the  singing  of  birds  is  come,  and  the  voice 
of  the  turtle  is  heard  in  the  land." 

And  after  that,  two  sparrows  who  were  blown 
away  last  autumn  by  the  keen  Northeaster,  and 


OUT -DOOR    PREACHING.  219 

that  nobody  thought  to  see  again,  sang  a  simple 
song,  the  burden  whereof  was,  "  Not  a  sparrow 
falleth  to  the  ground  without  Him." 

A  delicate  white  flower,  that  had  lifted  away 
a  counterpane  of  damp  gray  leaves,  stood  up  in 
its  place  at  the  foot  of  a  great  tree,  and  what 
did  we  have  then,  but  "  Thou  fool,  that  which 
thou  sowest  is  not  quickened  except  it  die.  Be 
hold,  I  show  you  a  mystery !  we  shall  not  all 
sleep,  but  we  shall  all  be  changed." 

And  the  little  stars  of  pink  and  white  flowers 
that  were  clustered  in  a  constellation  about  the 
mossy  rock,  lifted  up  their  voices  and  sang,  even 
as  they  did  in  Time's  morning :  "  There  is  one 
glory  of  the  sun,  and  another  glory  of  the 
moon,  and  another  glory  of  the  stars  ;  for  one  star 
differ eth  from  another  star  in  glory.  So  also  is 
the  resurrection  of  the  dead."  And  thus  the  doc 
trine  was  demonstrated,  and  a  robin  that  minute 
began  to  sing. 

Then  there  went  noiselessly  over  the  dead  leaves 
as  they  lay,  and  over  the  preachers,  and  over 
them  that  prayed,  a  small  shadow  ;  and,  looking 
up,  a  white  breath  of  cloud  was  drifting  by,  and 
it  said  as  it  went,  "  Thus  passeth  human  life," 
and  the  wind  breathed  a  low  sigh,  and  the  ser 
vice  went  on. 

And  all  the  while  the  birds  were  busy  as  busy 
could  be,  carrying  timbers  and  tapestry  and  couches 


220  BAGGAGE. 

of  down  for  the  homes  they  were  building,  and 
one  sang  as  she  wrought,  "  The  better  the  day," 
and  her  mate  took  it  up  with  "  The  better  the 
deed,"  and  the  Sabbath  unbroken  shone  on. 

A  few  bees,  brave  as  their  fellows  that  dared 
the  dead  lion  of  old  Samson's  time,  went  trum 
peting  along  the  neighboring  fields,  a  feeble 
charge  against  the  living  lion  of  the  North. 
Walking  along  the  grand  old  aisles  upon  whose 
floor  last  summer's  dead  were  lying,  let  us  recall 
the  time  before  the  first  snow  fell,  and  the  re 
lenting  year  looked  back  and  smiled,  so  sad  and 
sweet  a  smile,  even  as  our  dead  who  stand  some 
times  upon  the  holy  threshold  of  a  dream ; 
when  the  last  breath  of  those  dead  leaves  went 
heavenward  like  a  prayer,  and  Indian  Summer 
charmed  the  drowsy  earth  and  golden  air. 
But  there  is  no  dying  now.  The  graves  are 
opened !  Lo,  the  violet  comes  ;  the  lady-slippers 
dance  upon  the  air  while  wild  Sweet  Williams 
stand  admiring  by. 

Grand  sermons  preached  they  all,  of  faith  and 
hope  and  beauty  yet  to  be,  and  as  you  turned 
away,  there  in  the  field  a  passage  from  the  Ser 
mon  on  the  Mount,  wrapped  in  green  silk,  was 
lying,  and  what  was  it  but,  "Behold  the  lilies 
of  the  field,  how  they  grow,  they  toil  not,  neither 
do  they  spin,  and  yet  Solomon  in  all  his  glory 
was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these." 


OUr.  DOOR    PREACHING.  221 

So  with  fragments  of  sermons  and  snatches 
of  songs  strewn  along  the  way,  you  leave  the 
temple  of  the  Lord  and  bear  away  with  you 
some  of  the  preachers  and  some  of  the  singers 
and  some  of  the  beauties  of  the  great  congregation 
in  that  mighty  minster.  You  dismantle  a  fallen 
tree  of  one  of  Nature's  studies,  a  broad  green 
mat  of  moss,  a  piece  of  velvet  from  the  very 
loom  that  wove  the  glory  of  morning,  and  bear 
it  home  for  Sunday  Reading.  Perusing  it  awhile, 
you  wonder  you  could  ever  have  set  foot  on 
such  a  dainty  piece  of  work,  for  there,  written 
in  God's  "  fine  hand,"  are  maple  groves  and 
close-fed  pastures  for  some  tiny  herd ;  and  little 
pines  like  filaments  of  feathers  ;  and  emerald  hills 
full-crowned  with  woods ;  and  in  small  valleys, 
like  dimples  in  a  baby's  cheek,  a  mimic  lily,  as 
starlight  in  a  tear  ;  the  least  of  Alps  with  sand- 
grain  cliffs ;  spears  for  atomies,  tipped  with  a 
drop  of  red ;  trees  a  full  round  inch  in  height, 
touched  at  the  top  with  something  like  a  sunset; 
a  clover-field  broad  as  a  linnet's  wing,  and  tufts 
of  shrubs  that  might  hide  a  hunted  gnat  from 
some  small  sportsman  in  those  mimic  fields ;  a 
landscape  done  in  little ;  a  picture  Nature  painted 
on  Holidays  and  Sundays,  and  so  hid  death  that, 
in  some  fallen  tree,  lay  like  a  Titan  all  abroad. 

And  this  bright  landscape  fair  as  Eden  land, 
unrolled  upon  a  dinner  plate,  was  served  up  for 


222  BAGGAGE. 

Love-of-Beauty's  feast,  where  Fancy  sat  as  guest, 
and  Hope  stood  by.  How  earnest  Nature  is  in 
all  she  does;  how  finished,  all  her  work  from 
moss  to  mountain.  The  tint  on  girlhood's  lip  is 
well  laid  on,  indeed,  but  with  no  greater  care 
than  set  these  rubies  in  the  green  fields  of  Moss- 
land. 

And  so  that  plate  of  moss  "  reads  like  a  book." 
A  month  ago  those  pines  were  not ;  nay,  the 
small  mountain  where  they  grow  was  not  em 
bossed  upon  the  velvet,  and  here  you  look  upon 
the  programme  of  what  Earth  shall  be  —  the  fin 
ished  miracle  of  Spring ;  what  Earth  shall  be, 
despite  complaint  and  evil  prophecy. 

Take  Nature  at  her  word,  even  as  the  birds 
that  trust  her,  and  so  toil  and  sing  though  snows 
have  drifted  to  the  heart  of  May.  Look  not 
abroad  for  token  that  the  end  is  near.  No  tel 
escope  shall  ever  bring  to  view  time's  brown 
October.  But  when  the  birds  forget  to  build 
their  summer  homes  and  bless  the  woods,  and 
roses  lose  their  flush  and  fragrance ;  when  on 
just  such  another  scroll  of  mossy  landscape  as 
you  are  reading  now,  no  promises  are  made,  then 
know  that  earnest  Nature  has  wearied  of  her 
work  and  seeks  a  Holiday  at  last. 


THE   STORY  OF   THE  BELL.  223 


CHAPTER   V. 


THE    STORY    OF    THE    BELL. 

THE  Roman  knight  who  rode,  all  accoutred 
as  he  was,  into  the  gulf,  and  the  mouth  of  the 
hungry  Forum  closed  upon  him  and  was  satisfied, 
vanquished,  in  his  own  dying,  that  great  Philistine, 
Oblivion,  which,  sooner  or  later,  will  conquer  us 
all. 

But  there  is  an  old  story  that  always  charmed 
me  more.  In  some  strange  land  and  time  they 
were  about  to  cast  a  bell  for  a  mighty  tcwer ; 
a  hollow,  starless  heaven  of  iron.  It  should  toll 
for  dead  monarchs — "  the  king  is  dead!" — and 
make  glad  clamor  for  the  new  prince — "long 
live  the  king  ! "  It  should  proclaim  so  great  a 
passion  or  so  grand  a  pride  that  either  would 
be  worship,  or,  wanting  these,  forever  hold  its 
peace. 

Now  this  bell  was  not  to  be  digged  out  of 
the  cold  mountains  ;  it  was  to  be  made  of  some 
thing  that  had  been  warmed  with  a  human  touch 
or  loved  with  a  human  love.  And  so  the  people 


224  BAGGAGE, 

came  like  pilgrims  to  a  shrine,  and  cast  tliei; 
offerings  into  the  furnace  and  went  away.  There 
were  links  of  chains  that  bondmen  had  worn 
bright,  and  fragments  of  swords  that  had  broken 
in  heroes'  hands.  There  were  crosses  and  rings  and 
bracelets  of  fine  gold ;  trinkets  of  silver  and  toys 
of  poor  red  copper.  They  even  brought  things 
that  were  licked  up  in  an  instant  by  the  red 
tongues  of  flame ;  good  words  they  had  written 
and  flowers  they  had  cherished;  perishable  things 
that  could  never  be  heard  in  the  rich  tone  and 
volume  of  the  bell. 

And  the  fires  panted  like  a  strong  man  when 
he  runs  a  race,  and  the  mingled  gifts  flowed 
down  together  and  were  lost  in  the  sand,  and 
the  dome  of  iron  was  drawn  out  like  leviathan. 

And  by -and -by  the  bell  was  alone  in  its 
chamber,  and  its  four  windows  looked  forth  to 
the  four  quarters  of  heaven.  For  man}^  a  day 
it  hung  dumb;  the  winds  came  and  went,  but 
they  only  set  it  a  sighing  ;  birds  came  and  went, 
and  sang  under  its  eaves,  but  it  was  an  iron  hori 
zon  of  dead  melody  stall.  All  the  meaner  strifes 
and  passions  of  men  rippled  on  below  it.  They 
out-groped  the  ants,  and  out-wrought  the  bees, 
and  out-watched  the  Chaldean  shepherds,  but 
the  chamber  of  the  bell  was  as  dumb  as  the 
pyramids. 

At   last    there    came    a   time    when    men    grew 


THE   STORY  OF    THE  BELL.  225 

grand  for  right  and  truth,  and  stood  shoulder  to 
shoulder  over  all  the  land,  and  went  down  like 
reapers  to  the  harvest  of  death ;  looked  into 
the  graves  of  them  that  slept,  and  believed  there 
was  something  grander  than  living ;  glanced  on 
into  the  far  future  and  discerned  there  was  some 
thing  bitterer  than  dying,  and  so,  standing  be 
tween  the  quick  and  the  dead,  they  quitted 
themselves  like  men. 

Then  the  bell  woke  in  its  chamber,  and  the 
great  waves  of  its  music  rolled  gloriously  out 
and  broke  along  the  blue  walls  of  the  world  like 
an  anthem ;  and  every  tone  in  it  was  familiar 
as  a  household  word  to  somebody,  and  he  heard 
it  and  knew  it  with  a  solemn  joy.  Poured  into 
that  fiery  furnace -heart  together,  the  humblest 
gifts  were  blent  in  one  great  wealth,  and  accents 
feeble  as  a  sparrow's  song  grew  eloquent  and 
strong ;  and  lo,  a  people's  stately  soul  heaved 
on  the  tenth  wave  of  a  mighty  voice ! 

We  thank  GOD  in  this  our  day  for  the  fur 
nace  and  the  fire  ;  for  the  offerings  of  gold  and 
the  trinkets  of  silver;  for  the  good  deed  and 
the  true  word ;  for  the  great  triumph  and  the 
little  song. 

29 


226  BAGGAGE. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


THAT  sounds  like  slang,  and  I  have  quoted  it 
lest  somebody  should  think  it  original ;  but  then 
there  is  really  no  more  slang  in  it,  as  I  apply 
it,  than  there  is  in  Agur's  prayer  —  the  man 
who  wanted  what  eould  be  spared  precisely  as 
well  as  not,  and  who  proposed  to  make  his  pan 
taloons  without  any  pockets.  The  application 
changes  the  nature.  Thus,  I  spread  mustard 
upon  a  piece  of  linen  and  clap  it  upon  the  nape 
of  a  fellow's  neck,  and  it  is  a  blister.  I  veneer 
therewith  a  pink  and  white  slice  of  Israeli tish 
abomination,  and  protect  it  with  a  thin  section 
of  bread,  and  it  is  —  oh,  blessed  transformation  ! 
—  it  is  a  sandwich !  So  with  the  topmost  phrase 
of  this  chapter ;  a  boy  without  any  brim  to  his 
hat  shouts  it  in  the  street,  and  it  is  slang ; 
but  I  take  it  to  christen  an  essay  as  full  of  eyes 
as  Juno's  Argus,  and — presto!  —  it  becomes  a 
Christian  name. 

Perhaps    there  is   nothing   of  which   there  is  so 


"MY   EYE!"  227 

many  —  if  we  except  blades  of  grass  and  grains 
of  sand  —  as  eyes.  From  the  potato  that  watches 
you  perdu  from  its  native  hill,  to  a  peacock's 
tail,  about  everything  is  gifted  with  an  eye. 
There  's  the  eye  you  put  the  thread  through,  and 
the  eye  which  you  catch  with  a  hook,  my  girl, 
when  you  used  to  fasten  your  dress  behind ;  and 
the  eye  of  Day,  and  the  Daisy,  my  poet ;  and 
the  "  dry  eye,"  which  we  have  been  told  once 
or  twice  that  congregations  were  entirely  out  of. 
There 's  a  violet  in  the  garden-border  with  an 
eye  of  blue.  There  's  a  fly  on  the  window-pane 
—  six  legs,  and  "eyes"  enough  in  its  head  to 
carry  any  question  with  an  overwhelming  affirm 
ative.  There  's  "  Black-eyed  Susan,"  in  the  play, 
that  makes  you  hum  "  All  in  the  Downs  the 
fleet  was  moored,"  and  snuff  salt  water,  and 
make  a  fool  of  yourself.  I  can  recall  but  three 
things  at  the  moment  so  poor  as  not  to  be 
blessed  with  at  least  two  e}^es:  the  needle,  the 
Cyclops,  and  the  man  of  one  idea ! 

Homer  —  one  of  him  —  says  Juno  was  ox-eyed; 
and  though,  from  all  accounts,  Juno  was  rather 
a  coarse  creature,  yet  everybody  has  taken  to 
likening  his  love  to  somebody's  "  nigh  "  ox ;  and 
there  is  something  beautiful  in  the  great  lamp-like 
eyes  of  an  amiable  creature  that  comes  meekly 
under  the  yoke  and  never  makes  complaint.  Like 
Darwin's  other  monkeys,  we  are  all  imitative 


228  BAGGAGE. 

animals  ;  and  how  many  of  us  would  ever  have 
thought  to  look  into  a  bullock's  eyes  at  all  if 
the  blind  native  of  seven  cities  had  not  set  the 
example,  nobody  can  tell ;  but  then  it  is  the 
Greek  fashion  to  praise  the  women  and  the  oxen 
in  the  same  breath. 

"  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  here  is  one  of  the 
most  veracious  animals  that  swims  in  the  sea. 
He  follers  ships  if  so  be  somebody  may  be 
thro  wed  overboard  !  " 

The  speaker  was  a  rough  man,  with  one  arm 
and  a  grizzled  lip.  The  subject  of  his  discourse 
lay  in  a  tank  of  water,  and  watched  him  as  he 
talked.  The  thing  was  a  sea-tiger,  and  resembled 
an  exaggerated  seal.  Its  large,  round,  dark  head 
was  lifted  out  of  the  water  ;  but  that  head  was 
illuminated  by  a  pair  of  the  most  splendid  eyes 
in  the  world.  I  can  not  say  there  was  any  trace 
of  soul  in  them,  albeit  there  might  be  a  tender 
memory  of  the  soles  of  the  copper-toed  shoes  of 
the  last  little  boy  he  had  masticated  and  swal 
lowed  ;  but  ah,  those  eyes! — they  were  large 
and  gentle  and  pensive.  You  would  n't  have 
been  a  bit  surprised  had  he  burst  out  with  one 
of  Moore's  melodies  about 

"  No  pearl  ever  lay  under  Oman's  green  water." 

If  the  keeper  was  as  "veracious"  as  he  declared 
the  tiger  was,  of  a  truth  those  eyes  were  the 


"MY  EYE!"  229 

most  mendacious  couple  that  ever  kept  company. 
If  there  is  no  surviving  relative  to  object,  1 
should  like  to  call  one  of  them  Ananias  and  the 
other  Sapphira.  It  was  a  case  of  love  at  first 
sight.  Such  wistful,  melting  glances  as  that 
miserable  beast  turned  upon  the  ladies  who 
shook  their  fans  at  him,  and  the  little  children 
who  "made  eyes"  at  him  in  return,  nobody  but 
a  captivating  woman  could  hope  to  rival. 

The  dingy  plaster  wall  of  a  smoke-house  is 
as  utterly  blank  as  your  last  lottery  ticket.  Now 
fancy  the  dirty  leather  apron  of  some  son  of 
Yulcan  hung  ignobly  thereon,  and  then  fancy, 
as  you  look  at  it,  an  impossible  eye  breaking  out 
all  at  once  in  an  improbable  place  in  that  wall 
and  close  to  the  apron  —  an  eye  small,  twinkling, 
uncertain,  and  you  have  the  expression  of  an 
elephant's  countenance.  And  yet  we  boys  and 
girls  have  all  been  led  up  to  Columbus,  Hanni 
bal,  Romeo,  and  the  rest  of  them,  and  bidden 
to  mark  the  sagacious  glitter  of  that  sinister 
crevice.  The  word  "  sagacity"  is  completely 
ruined  for  all  human  uses.  It  belongs  to  the 
baggage-smashers  of  the  brute  creation ;  and  when 
ever  you  read  of  some  "sagacious"  statesman  you 
immediately  think  of  an  elephant.  Without  the 
intelligence  of  a  horse  or  the  affection  of  a  dog, 
and  with  no  beauty  either  of  mould  or  motion, 
the  beast's  eye  tells  the  story  of  what  Cooper's 
Sachem  calls  "  the  hog  with  two  tails." 


230  BAGGAGE. 

The  remembrance  of  an  eye  is  the  most  tena 
cious  of  memories.  You  may  forget  the  fashion 
of  face  and  figure,  but  if 

"  There  's  a  light  in  the  window  for  thee," 

the  expression  of  an  eye  will  sometimes  be  all 
that  remains  to  you  of  a  dead  friend.  There  it 
is  that  the  soul  comes  the  nearest  to  escaping. 
There  it  is  more  nearly  undressed  and  out  of 
doors  than  it  can  possibly  be  any  where  else 
without  dying. 

"  Was  Aaron  Burr  tall  ? "  asked  one  woman 
of  another  who  once  saw  that  recreant  "  child 
of  many  prayers "  just  for  one  moment  at  Al 
bany. 

"I  don't  know,"  was  the  reply;  "but  such 
a  glance  as  he  gave  you  I  I  have  always  re 
membered  him  as  the  man  with  the  living  eyes." 
Ah,  the  flash  of  the  soul's  artillery  has  photo 
graphic  powers  beyond  the  art  of  the  artist,  and 
its  proofs,  of  all  the  printing  in  the  world  are 
imperishable  ! 

Do  you  remember  the  pretty  pebbles  you  used 
to  gather  out  of  the  beds  of  the  brooks  —  the 
notes  of  the  sweet  low  tune  they  ran  by  ? 
Dripping  from  the  water,  they  were  red  rubies 
and  green  garnets  arid  golden  opals  and  blue 
sapphires  —  precious  stones  every  one ;  but  the 
glory  and  glamour  of  the  brooks  once  gone,  they 


"MY   EYE!"  231 

grew  dim  and  dull  and  valueless.  It  is  so  with 
human  eyes.  You  can  not  always  be  sure  of  their 
color.  A  pale,  light  eye  may  deepen  and  darken, 
when  the  soul  is  stirred  behind  it,  till  you  de 
clare  it  black  as  midnight ;  and  a  brown  e}Te 
may  be  fairly  bleached  blue  in  the  light  and  fire 
of  passion.  The  elder  Booth's  eyes  were  all 
colors  in  a  night ;  and  Charlotte  Cushman's,  as 
Meg  Merrilies,  kindled  into  a  broad  white  blaze, 
like  a  pine-knot  fire.  A  nose  brought  to  an 
edge,  and  a  couple  of  small  black  eyes,  form, 
as  astrologers  say,  "  an  inauspicious  conjunction." 
Such  eyes  are  apt  to  snap,  a  dreadful  hemlock 
quality,  to  which  a  strabismus,  so  violent  that 
the  vicious  members  seem  trying  to  get  at  each 
other  under  the  bridge  of  the  nose,  is  a  blessing 
and  a  beauty.  Let  us  not  be  censorious.  Let 
us  wish  the  owners  of  all  such  eyes  a  great 
deal  of  self-control,  or  a  little  of  the  grace  of 
God. 

But  whatever  you  do,  I  pray  you  never  call 
anybody's  eyes  "  orbs,"  unless  you  are  re-writing 
MiltonV  Paradise  Lost.  And  do  n't  call  them 
"organs."'  There  was  a  country  printer  and 
editor  whose  wristbands  would  have  been  always 
in  mourning  with  his  hands,  if  he  had  worn  a 
shirt,  and  who  always  had  a  stale  copy  of  his 
paper  sticking  out  of  a  side -pocket,  and  smell 
ing  musty — for  he  used  poor  ink  and  poor  ideas 


232  BAGGAGE. 


to  match  —  and  he  was  forever  talking  of  his 
"  organ,"  wherever  he  was,  and  quoting  from 
his  "  organ,"  until  people  laughed  about  it,  and 
said  "  there  was  a  complete  outfit  for  some  itin 
erant  Italian  with  musical  proclivities.  There 
was  an  '  organ,'  and  there  was  a  monkey,  and 
nothing  lacking  but  the  man  to  grind  it,  and  a 
piece  of  green  baize ! "  If  you  wish  to  know 
about  a  word,  set  the  children  to  using  it.  Fancy 
little  Johnny's  cry  of  "  Oh,  I  've  got  something 
in  my  organs!"  or  a  sound  of  lamentation  in 
Ramah  —  leastwise  in  the  door-yard — with  Jenny's 
wail  that  her  sun-bonnet  keeps  tumbling  over  her 
orbs !  When  children  and  grown  folks  talk  alike, 
and  the  boy  speaks  as  if  he  were  crazy,  you  may 
be  sure  the  man  talks  as  if  he  were  a  fool. 

I  had  a  friend.  He  was  murdered  in  Illinois. 
The  man  that  killed  him  was  never  so  true  to 
anybody  as  was  this  friend  to  me  and  mine. 
He  was  buried  without  song  or  sermon.  He  has 
gone  to  a  good  place,  if  he  has  gone  <my where. 
I  am  not  certain,  but  I  hope  so,  for  there  was 
too  much  genuine  nobility  about  him  to  perish 
utterly  away — to  be  snuffed  out  like  a  candle, 
as  if  he  had  never  been.  His  name  was  —  PEDRO. 
His  eyes,  dark  in  the  shadow,  russet  in  the  sun, 
talked  English  all  the  while.  Wronged  by  word 
or  blow,  they  pleaded  for  him  with  a  touching 
pathos.  Caressed,  they  laughed  and  sparkled  like 


"MY   EYE!"  233 

living  fountains.  Stretched  upon  the  threshold 
in  the  genial  sun,  a  large  human  content  worth 
praying  for  shone  in  his  eyes.  There  was  a 
great  deal  too  much  meaning  in  them  for  a 
creature  whose  "  spirit  goeth  downward,"  and 
almost  enough  for  a  being  with  a  soul  to  be 
saved.  What  gave  those  eyes  their  eloquence  ? 
Did  the  mere  machinery  of  a  dog's  life  light 
them  up  so  wonderfully,  wistfully,  sorrowfully? 
There  were  love  in  them,  and  hope  and  abiding 
trust  and  an  honest  heart.  What  lacked  he  to 
entitle  him  to  two  names  like  a  Christian,  in 
stead  of  one  ?  He  knew  plenty  of  people  with 
whom  he  never  could  have  exchanged  qualities 
without  getting  the  worst  of  the  bargain.  But 
he  did  better  than  to  be  a  contemptible  man, 
for  he  was  a  noble  dog.  His  eyes  look  inquir 
ingly,  wistfully,  after  me  through  the  shadows 
of  the  years  that  are  past.  They  are  the  im 
mortal  part  of  him.  They  will  last  out  a  human 
memory.  Hereaway !  PEDRO  !  Hereaway ! 

The  kernel  of  the  proverb,  "  Love  me,  love 
my  dog,"  is  that  you  are  getting  pretty  near  a 
man  when  you  have  made  friends  with  his  dog. 
Now,  I  hate  "  black  and  tans,"  the  tantivying 
creatures,  their  mouths  full  of  needles,  a  bark  as 
sharp  as  a  razor,  and  the  whole  case  of  instru 
ments  on  all  sides  of  you  at  once  ;  but  I  insist 

80* 


234  BAGGAGE. 

that    I    love    dogs.      "  Black    and   tans "    are   not 
dogs;    they  are    cutlery. 

And  now,  to  come  right  home  and  make  a 
personal  matter  of  it,  this  gossip  would  never 
have  seen  the  light  had  I  not  suffered  the  tern-  i 
porary  loss  of  one  eye,  and  that  set  me  think 
ing.  Our  "  body  servants,"  the  most  of  them, 
came  into  the  world  as  Noah's  caravan  went  into 
the  ark  —  in  pairs.  Two  hands,  two  feet,  two 
ears,  two  eyes ;  and  they  are  matched  spans,  every 
one.  The  truth  is,  I  never  thought  much  about 
having  any  eyes  at  all  until  one  of  them  went 
under  a  cloud.  None  of  us  do.  A  man  never 
feels  his  ears,  no  matter  how  long  they  are,  while 
they  work  well,  unless  he  lays  hold  of  them  with 
his  hands.  With  some  men,  though,  their  ears 
are  their  "best  hold."  So  with  the  eyes.  When 
the  sight  is  keen  and  clear,  we  just  take  in  day 
and  its  glories,  and  the  charm  of  color,  and  the 
witchery  of  shadow,  we  hardly  know  how.  We 
feel  them  no  more  than  we  do  the  window-panes 
through  which  come  the  sunset  and  the  starlight. 
But  let  something  go  wrong,  and  you  are  brought 
to  a  lively  sense  of  possession  in  a  twinkling. 
You  begin  to  discover  how  rich  you  were  with 
out  knowing  it,  and  what  an  incalculable  blessing 
you  would  lose  if  only  one  eye  should  be  extin 
guished.  I  breathed  air  one  night,  a  while  ago, 
that  eight  hundred  friendly  people  had  just 


"MY   EYE!"  235 

breathed  for  me ;  and  I  stood  with  my  left 
shoulder  to  an  open  window  with  a  chill  breeze 
through  it,  and  my  left  eye  fell  to  weeping  for 
the  folly  of  the  thing ;  and  then  impalpable  crows 
began  to  build  a  nest  of  most  palpable  sticks, 
and  fairly  filled  the  unfortunate  e}7rie  until  it 
ceased  to  be  a  window,  and  became  a  —  rookery! 
And  the  eye  was  closed  until  the  unseemly  birds 
could  be  persuaded  to  build  elsewhere. 

I  think,  if  you  touch  a  man's  eye  roughly, 
you  come  within  one  of  touching  his  soul ;  and 
I  came  to  think  at  times  that  the  crows  were 
foraging  in  my  perceptive  faculties  for  material 
wherewith  to  put  my  eye  out. 

The  first  thing  done  was  to  pickle  the  offend 
ing  member  in  strong  brine,  as  if  it  were  an 
onion;  but  the  miserable  business  of  corvine 
nidification  went  on.  Had  you  thrust  both  those 
hard  words  into  my  eye  together,  it  could  n't 
have  hurt  me  a  bit  worse  than  the  crows  did. 

Having  made  pickles,  it  was  thought  best  to 
put  up  a  sardine  or  two.  Flax  seed  was  ex 
pressed  and  impressed  in  an  oleaginous  bag, 
whose  slippery  contents  wriggled  about  on  the 
tremulous  lid  like  a  packet  of  angle-worms.  But 
the  crows  liked  linseed  and  kept  on.  Things 
looked  serious,  as  far  as  I  could  see  them  with 
a  solitary  eye ;  but  there  was  a  comfort :  if  I 
had  half  as  many  eyes,  I  had  twice  as  many 


236  BAGGAGE. 

friends,  and  they  were  tender-hearted  women.  I 
was  a  sort  of  Mungo  Park,  in  a  small  way,  only 
I  had  a  wife  to  look  into  my  eye  whenever  I 
asked  her,  which  was  every  few  minutes ;  and 
I  was  n't  in  Africa,  and  I  did  n't  lie  under  a 
tree,  and  my  female  friends  were  not  negroes, 
and  they  did  n't  sing, 

"  He  has  no  mother  to  bring  him  milk, 
No  wife  to  grind  his  corn." 

With  these  exceptions  I  was  precisely  like 
Mungo  Park.  The  ladies  were  solicitous  and 
helpful.  One  suggested  bread  and  milk ;  it  was 
brought  and  set  upon  the  top  of  the  stove. 
Another,  an  alum  curd ;  it  was  made  and  set 
under  the  stove.  A  third,  Thompson's  Eye-water; 
it  was  brought  and  thrown  into  the  stove.  A 
fourth,  Pettit's  Eye-salve ;  it  appeared  and  was 
set  upon  the  table. 

•Sandwiches  were  pronounced  good ;  and  hand- 
breadths  of  mustard,  tawnier  than  the  river 
Tiber,  were  spread  behind  my  ears,  and  a  care 
less  crow  dropped  a  stick  or  two.  It  was  getting 
too  warm  for  them,  but  I  could  not  see  why. 
In  fact,  I  couldn't  see  much  of  anything.  It 
grew  warm;  it  waxed  hot.  The  skin  rolled  up 
like  tattered  bits  of  parchment,  and  the  sandwich 
lunch  was  over. 

It   was   time   to    call    the   Doctor.      He    came. 


"MY   EYE!"  237 

Shrewd,  skillful,  patient,  he  mastered  the  situa 
tion.  He  saw  the  dishes  of  sea-water  standing 
about,  and  the  bags  of  linseed,  and  the  plasters 
of  mustard,  and  the  alum  curds,  and  the  lotions, 
and  the  unguents,  and  he  fell  upon  my  eye,  and 
he  opened  it  as  a  Baltimore  boy  opens  an  oyster. 
He  got  no  help  from  me  ;  but  he  saw  the  crows. 
Looking  about,  he  took  a  rapid  inventory  of 
what  there  was  in  the  room  that  had  not  al 
ready  been  put  into  my  eye.  He  gazed  inquir 
ingly  at  the  bureau  and  a  large  rocking-chair. 
The  sheet  of  zinc  on  which  the  stove  stood  ar 
rested  his  attention.  "  You  have  n't  used  that, 
have  you?"  "  No,"  said  I;  and  he  whipped 
out  a  little  bottle,  said  "  Zinc,"  shook  it,  pried 
open  my  eye  with  an  earnestness  that  would 
not  be  denied,  and  poured  the  zinc  square  into 
it.  Did  you  ever  lie  on  your  back  in  the  bottom 
of  a  shot-tower  when  they  were  raining  lead  ? 
If  you  never  did,  you  do  n't  want  to.  And  then 
the  Doctor  rolled  my  unfortunate  optic  about 
like  a  billiard  ball,  until  the  liquid  was  swashed 
over  the  whole  surface.  I  thought  then,  and  I 
still  think,  he  meant  to  burn  up  the  crows'  nest, 
possibly  the  crows.  That  eye  was  better ;  the 
birds  dropped  a  few  more  sticks ;  but  they  hung 
about  the  old  place  still. 

It   was    then    thought    best   to   give   the   cellar 
the  usual   spring  cleaning,  and   feed   the  pig  with 


238  BAGGAGE. 

the  product.  Rotten  apples  weie  recommended; 
and  a  Russet,  that  needed  to  be  sent  to  the 
cooper's,  leaned  lazily  over  to  one  side  on  a 
little  plate,  ready  for  use. 

A  kind  lady  from  Massachusetts,  for  whose 
interest  I  shall  always  be  grateful,  said  that  hen 
and  chickens  were  good  —  hen  and  chickens 
smothered  in  cream.  That  puzzled  me.  It  was 
too  late  for  hens  and  too  early  for  chickens. 
But  the  lady  set  a  dozen  pairs  of  little  nimble 
feet  flying  about  the  neighborhood  for  the  poul 
try  ;  and  one  day  she  came,  bringing  a  handful 
of  small,  green  plants,  chuckle-headed  and  cun 
ning,  and  the  secret  of  the  fowls  was  out.  They 
were  "  house-leeks."  The  brood  was  put  in  a 
tumbler  and  placed  upon  the  bureau. 

But  the  mischief  went  on  in  the  aviary.  I 
think  one  of  the  crows  was  setting,  ready  to  lay 
or  hatch,  or  something,  while  the  other  was 
building  a  door-yard  fence.  It  was  the  ninth 
day,  when  even  puppies  pass  the  limit  of  total 
eclipse,  and  something  must  be  done.  Another 
lady,  also  from  the  Bay  State,  proposed,  as  the 
cooking  and  baking  had  been  done,  and  the  pig 
comforted,  that  we  should  feed  the  —  sheep  !  She 
named  carrots.  The  girls  down  stairs  were  set 
to  washing  carrots,  and  the  procession  of  the 
golden  vegetable  began  to  move.  First,  a  boy 
with  a  carrot  in  his  claw,  like  Jupiter's  eagle 


"MY  EYE!"  239 

with  a  thunderbolt  in  his  talon.  Then  a  lady 
with  a  carrot  on  a  tea-plate.  Then  a  man  with 
an  immense  fellow  on  a  platter.  Then  more  car 
rots.  Last,  a  grater,  and  the  business  began. 
My  patient,  anxious  wife  sat  up  all  night  grat 
ing  carrots.  It  sounded,  in  the  middle  watches, 
like  the  rasp  of  a  distant  saw-mill.  Everything 
was  the  color  of  Ophir.  For  twenty-four  hours, 
once  in  eighteen  minutes,  did  she  apply  that  car 
rot  ;  and  the  crows  began  to  grow  uneasy.  Their 
nest  began  to  tumble  to  pieces.  The  repeated 
and  tremendous  assaults  proved  too  much  for 
them.  The  eye  that  had  looked  like  an  angry 
moon  in  a  watery  sky  began  to  clear  up,  and 
recover  its  blue-white  porcelain  look  once  more. 
The  bandage  was  whipped  off;  but  the  team 
did  n't  pull  even.  My  right  eye  had  gone  ahead 
in  the  business  of  seeing,  and  straightened  the 
traces  till  they  twanged  like  fiddle-strings.  The 
left  eye  was  drooping  and  languid.  Things  had 
a  cloudy  look.  I  saw  two  doctors,  when  only 
one  had  come  in.  I  had  two  wives,  with  a  face 
apiece,  growing  on  a  single  stem,  like  a  couple 
of  cherries.  My  Massachusetts  friends  came  in 
with  their  doubles.  But  the  worst  of  it  was,  I 
had  four  feet,  like  a  quadruped.  Think  of  the 
expense  !  Imagine  the  boots !  It  was  a  worry. 
But  I  began  this  article.  The  crows  are  taking 
flight  —  to  return,  I  trust,  in  the  only  English 
Poe's  raven  ever  knew  —  "nevermore."  - 


240  BAGGAGE. 

I  am  indebted  to  the  Doctor  and  I  always 
mean  to  be.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  he 
made  those  crows  uneasy.  The  zinc  was  worse 
than  the  crows,  and  they  could  not  abide  peace 
fully  in  one  place.  He  has  gone  into  the  eye- 
business  altogether,  for  he  is  a  Surgeon  in  the 
Navy.  He  is  going  to  sea. 

The  brightest  May  sun  breaks  out  of  the  cloud. 
It  kindles  the  hills ;  it  touches  up  the  woods, 
just  ready  to  bud.  A  robin  sings  that  same  old 
song  by  the  window. 

Thank  GOD  for  Light.  His  resplendent  crea 
tion —  Light,  that  came  into  being  the  moment 
He  called  it,  like  an  instant  and  ready  angel, 
watching  at  His  feet. 

Thank  GOD  for  eyes  —  the  most  delicate  and 
exquisite  of  all  our  servants.  Let  us  be  Per 
sians,  and  worship  the  Sun.  Let  us  be  Israel 
ites,  and  pray  with  our  faces  toward  the  EAST. 


THE   OLD  ROAD.  241 


CHAPTER  VII. 


THE    OLD    ROAD. 

IN  almost  every  old  neighborhood  there  is  an 
old  road,  disused  and  half  forgotten,  and  we 
like  to  get  away  from  the  traveled  thoroughfare, 
and  wander,  in  a  summer's  day,  along  its  de 
serted  route. 

Our  grandfathers  had  a  species  of  indomitable 
directness  in  making  roads  and  making  love 
that  was  wonderful  to  see.  They  did  not  be 
lieve  in  the  line  of  beauty ;  there  was  nothing 
curvilinear  about  them,  either  in  word  or  deed. 
They  went  by  square  and  compass,  and  life  and 
religion  were  laid  out  like  Solomon's  Temple. 
And  so,  straight  over  the  hill,  and  right  through 
the  big  timber,  and  plump  into  the  swamp,  and 
bounce  over  the  "  corduroy,"  went  the  old  road. 

Its  long  bridges  are  broken  and  mossy  now, 
and  brown  birds  in  white  waistcoats  build  nests 
beneath  them,  undisturbed  by  the  small  thunder 
of  the  rumbling  wheels. 

Nobody    goes    that    way,    not    even    the    boys 

31 


242  BAGGAGE. 

bound  out  for  school  ;  for,  ever  so  many  years 
ago,  in  a  November  day,  they  have  heard,  a 
stranger  went  down  by  the  old  mill  —  you  can 
see  the  rim  of  its  dry  gray  wheel  from  here  — 
and  was  never  heard  of  more. 

Years  after,  among  the  hemlocks,  human  bones 
were  found,  and  to  this  day,  on  windy  nights, 
groans  come  out  of  the  gulf,  and  the  troubled 
ghost  is  thought  to  be  walking  still. 

Over  yonder  are  a  broad-disked  sunflower  and 
a  heap  of  stone.  The  latter  was  once  a  hearth, 
for  a  house  stood  there,  and  after  the  stranger 
disappeared  the  tenant  grew  suddenly  rich,  as 
the  times  went,  and  showed  gold  with  unknown 
words  upon  it,  that  none  of  the  neighbors  could 
make  out,  and  pretty  soon  he  took  all  that  he 
had  and  went  West ;  as  some  said  to  the  "  Gen- 
esee  Country,"  and  others  to  "  the  Ohio,"  which 
was  yet  more  like  a  dream  than  the  Genesee. 

After  that,  nobody  would  live  in  the  house, 
and  it  grew  ruinous,  and  was  haunted,  and  people 
saw  a  light  there  in  dark  nights,  or  thought 
they  did,  and  the  children  shunned  it,  except  in 
the  brightest  of  mornings,  when  the  sun  "was 
shining  arid  the  birds  were  singing,  and  the  cows 
went  lowing,  Indian  file,  to  the  pasture ;  and  after 
awhile,  the  old  house  tumbled  down  and  crum 
bled  away.  Such  stories  thrive  along  old  roads, 
even  as  the  Mayweed,  and  the  thistles,  that  no- 


THE   OLD  ROAD.  243 

body  ever  cuts,  and  on  whose  pink  tops  the 
yellow-birds  rock  up  and  down,  like  little  boats 
at  anchor,  till  the  Fall  winds  whistle  away  the 
golden  birds  and  the  white  down. 

Even  the  brooks  that  used  to  tinkle  across  the 
track  and  under  the  little  bridges,  have  somehow 
run  dry,  or  gone  another  way,  and  you  will  see 
dn  old  trough,  dusty  and  bleached,  by  the  road 
side,  the  strip  of  bark,  that  brought  the  water 
from  the  hills,  broken  and  scattered,  and  the 
earth  worn  hard  and  smooth  with  the  tramping 
of  many  feet.  Very  long  ago,  a  tin  cup  used 
to  hang  there,  tethered  with  a  string,  for  the 
sake  of  thirsty  travelers.  We  like  to  stand  by 
the  deserted  place,  where  only  a  broken  thread 
of  ice-cold  water  trickles  its  way  down  to  the 
roadside,  and  fancy  how  eagerly,  in  the  broad 
summer  days,  the  horses,  panting  through  the 
heavy  sand  and  up  the  rocky  hills,  thrust  their 
noses  deep  into  the  overflowing  trough  of  crystal 
coolness,  while,  now  and  then,  the  cautious  dri 
vers  pulled  up  their  heads  with  a  jerk,  until 
they  heard  the  long-drawn  breath  of  inarticulate 
content. 

We  like  to  think  that  the  dripping  cup  was 
borne  to  bearded  lips  that  were  eloquent  and 
true  of  old,  and  lips,  maybe,  of  beauty,  that  are 
dusty  and  dumb  to-day ;  that  bees  from  the 
shimmering  fields  came  bugling  thither,  and  crept, 


244  BAGGAGE. 

with  dainty  feet,  along  the  trough's  damp  edge ; 
that  birds  sat  there,  and  drank  and  rendered 
their  little  thanks,  and  rode  away  upon  the  bil 
lowy  air;  that  now  and  then  a  squirrel,  red  and 
sleek,  with  snowy  throat,  flashed  chattering  along 
the  zigzag  rails,  and  flashed  away  again ;  or  a 
gray  rabbit,  with  little  noiseless  leap  and  listen 
ing  ears,  took  hurried  draughts  and  squatted 
among  the  alders  till  the  panting  dog  had  lapped 
the  nectar  of  the  wayside  spring. 

There,  where  the  Maple  wears  its  crown,  a 
lazy  gate  is  swinging  in  the  wind,  sole  relic  of 
a  fence  that  straggled  round  a  home,  of  which 
the  weedy,  tangled  hollow  alone  gives  proof. 

It  may  have  been  some  Rachel  dwelt  therein, 
who  met  a  second  Jacob  at  the  spring,  and 
Fancy  listens  for  the  words  they  said,  not  found 
in  "  Ovid's  Art  of  Love," — the  maid  a  matron, 
and  the  matron  dead. 

And  then,  strolling  thoughtfully  along,  where 
the  track  grows  dim,  and  loses  itself  in  the 
grass,  we  come  to  the  beeches,  whereto,  we  like 
to  think,  glad  children  once  made  pilgrimage, 
That  chafed  and  sturdy  limb  has  borne  a  weight 
more  precious  than  its  leaves.  Upon  the  stout 
old  arm,  swayed  to  and  fro  like  canaries  in  a 
ring,  swung  clusters  of  laughing  girls  and  boys, 
and  then  beneath  it,  hand  -  in  -  hand,  made  bows 
and  courtesies  to  the  passing  traveler,  while 


THE   OLD  ROAD  245 

tattered  hats  of  straw  and  wool  tossed  here  and 
there  proclaimed  the  coming  stage.  Ah !  there 
ware  clays  when,  over  the  old  road,  ran  the 
yellow,  mud-stained  coach ;  laboring  up  its  hills, 
and  pitching  along  its  log-ways,  and  lurching  in 
its  deep-worn  tracks,  and  rattling  down  its  steeps, 
and  splashing  through  its  brooks. 

And  there,  in  that  roofless  dwelling,  whose 
clap-boards  rattle  in  the  wind,  behold  "  the  stage 
house"  of  the  elder  time.  Very  grand  people 
used  to  get  out  of  that  stage  sometimes,  and 
quite  as  grand  were  the  dinners  that  the  bustling 
landlady  and  her  girls  set  forth.  Then  it  was 
that  the  blacksmith,  in  his  dusty  shop  across 
the  road,  was  wont  to  lean  upon  his  hammer, 
and  discuss  the  merits  of  wheel-horse  and  leader. 

You  can  see,  even  to  this  day,  the  burned  and 
blackened  ring  in  the  greensward  where  he  used 
to  "  set  the  tire."  Of  the  smithy  and  the  man, 
no  other  trace  remains. 

Children  sometimes  wander  out  to  the  old  road, 
and  wonder  where  it  leads,  and  whether  to  the 
end  of  the  world ;  and  we  delight  to  join  them 
in  conjecture ;  to  think  what  stalwart  men  they 
were,  that,  ax  in  hand,  so  bravely  cut  their 
way  through  the  dim  resounding  woods,  and 
rolled  their  cabins  up;  to  think  what  "beauty" 
and  Avhat  "  beast"  in  elder  times  did  pass  along 
this  road  ;  what  laughter  echoed  and  what  jests 


246  BAGGAGE. 

went  round;  that  canvas-covered  wains  in  many 
a  camp  were  scattered  towards  the  West,  and 
red  fires  twinkled  through  the  leafy  tents ;  that 
soldiers  in  some  old  campaign,  and  ponderous? 
cannon  went  that  way  to  battle,  and  returned 
at  last,  but  fewer  than  they  went.  This  was 
the  route  of  them,  perhaps,  who  founded  cities 
in  the  brave  young  West,  its  future  sinews  and 
its  coming  men ;  of  newly-wedded  pairs  bound 
for  the  later  Canaan ;  of  murderers  hastening' 
from  the  hue  and  cry. 

Across  its  beaten  path  the  deer  have  trooped, 
the  Indian  noiseless  stole,  the  forest  shadows 
fallen  at  high  noon.  Westward  it  went  to  some 
great  lake,  they  said,  where  fields  all  ready  for 
the  plow  grew  green  to  the  water's  edge,  where 
springs  came  early  and  golden  autumns  lingered 
late. 

Along  that  way,  trampled  beneath  the  driver's 
feet,  the  mail-bag  went  and  came,  and  now  and 
then  a  letter  from  the  West;  a  great  brown  sheet, 
and  traced  with  awkward  pen  and  faded  ink, 
yet  how  like  a  ballad  ran  the  homely  missive : 
of  green  March  fields,  and  February  flowers;  of 
Nature's  meadows  waiting  for  the  scythe ;  of 
clustering  grapes  that  mantled  all  the  woods ; 
of  nearest  neighbors  but  two  miles  apart ;  of 
dreams  of  plenty  and  of  peace.  Blended  there 
with  were  memories  of  home  and  words  of  love 


THE   OLD  ROAD.  247 

sent  back,  and  a  little  sigh,  half  breathed,  for 
faces  they  never  more  should  see. 

What  tidings  went,  sometimes,  of  fortunes  won, 
and  fame,  by  errant  sons ;  of  girls  whose  graves 
were  made  where  the  sunbeams  rest,  "  when  they 
promise  a  glorious  morrow." 

Thus  slowly  to  and  fro  crept  the  sweet  sylla 
bles  of  love,  the  untranslated  Gospel  of  the 
human  heart;  and,  though  long  on  the  way,  they 
never  grew  chilly  or  old. 

Ah,  those  letters  on  huge,  buckram  foolscap, 
crackling  when  you  opened  them  like  a  fire  in 
the  hemlocks,  that  used  to  be  written  when 
letters  were  as  honest  as  an  open  palm  !  Those 
old,  half-naked  letters,  their  blue  ribs  showing 
through,  ventured  out  at  long  and  painful  inter 
vals,  were  indited  "  after  meeting,"  and  were 
sure  to  contain  religion,  death  or  a  wedding. 
The  old-time  writer,  though  wicked  as  Captain 
Kyd  on  week  days,  was  bound  to  have  religion 
enough  in  his  letter  to  float  it  on  Sunday,  and 
he  was  no  hypocrite  that  did  it,  for  it  was  the 
deliberate,  passionless  transcript  of  his  better  self. 
Lay  side  by  side  an  old  letter  of  1840  and  a 
new  letter  of  1874 :  the  one  right-angled,  neat 
and  snug  in  its  white  or  buff  jacket,  wearing  a 
medallion  as  if  it  belonged  to  the  legion  of 
honor,  self -folding,  self -sealing,  self -paying,  and 
ready  for  the  road.  The  other  in  its  shirt- 


248  BAGGAGE. 

sleeves,  broad,  long,  and  possibly  five-cornered, 
written  across  its  baggy  back  like  a  note  at  the 
bank,  "for  here  you  see  the  owner's  name," — an 
"  18| "  or  a  "  25 "  done  in  red  ink  in  a  corner, 
and  sealed  with  a  pat  of  shoe-maker's  wax  or 
a  little  biscuit  of  dough.  But  as  honest  hearts 
were  done  up  in  those  rude  letters  as  ever  were 
set  going,  and  the  awkward  pages  were  more 
richly  illuminated  than  an  old  Saint's  Legend, 
with  unadorned  and  simple  friendship. 

But  over  on  the  new  route  they  have  strung 
the  Telegraph,  where  the  rise  of  flour  and  the 
fall  of  foes  are  transmitted  by  the  same  flash, 
and  the  price  of  barley  and  a  priceless  blessing 
go  flickering  along  in  company.  The  houses  on 
the  old  road  —  what  few  there  are  left  —  stand 
with  their  backs  to  the  railway  and  the  tele 
graph;  and  the  wheeled  World,  as  it  goes  thun 
dering  by,  looks  askance  upon  the  back-kitchens 
and  pig-pens  of  the  old-time. 

But  the  houses  on  the  new  road  are  very  new, 
and  smell  of  paint ;  the  blinds  are  very  green, 
and  the  people  very  grand.  The  East  and  the 
West  have  kissed  each  other  across  the  Con 
tinent,  and  every  body  and  thing  between  is 
brisk  as  a  flea,  and  breathless  as  a  king's  trum 
peter.  Even  Consumption  has  whipped  up  its 
pale  horse  to  a  gallop,  and  dashed  into  the 
steeple-chase  of  the  Age. 


THE   OLD  ROAD.  249 

And  year  after  year  the  old  road  grows  dimmer, 
and  the  grass  gets  green  across  the  track,  and 
it  is  rechristened  "  the  long  pasture,"  and  is  sur 
rendered  to  the  lowing  herds  and  the  singing 
birds.  In  the  midst  of  a  region  humming  with 
life,  it  alone  is  silent,  and  almost  awakens  human 
sympathy,  so  wandering  and  lost  and  desolate 
it  is. 

Sometimes,  as  you  dust  along  the  turnpike, 
you  can  see  it  as  it  comes  in  sight  round  a 
clump  of  tangled  trees,  and  "makes"  as  if  it 
would  venture  into  the  new  thoroughfare  and  go 
somewhere,  but  it  never  does,  for,  speedily  sink 
ing  back  into  the  hollow,  it  is  lost  among  the 
willows. 

Like  a  very  old  memory  in  the  heart  is  it, 
and  all  forget  it  but  the  Year.  Spring  remem 
bers  it,  and  borders  it  with  green  and  sprinkles 
it  with  the  gold  coin  of  the  dandelion  and  the 
little  stars  of  the  Mayweed.  Summer  sends  the 
bees  thither  to  bugle  among  the  thistle-blows, 
and  the  ground-sparrows  build  in  its  margins,  and 
the  faded  ribbon  of  yellow  sand  grows  bright  in 
its  glowing  sun.  The  winds  waft  the  breath  of 
the  morning  over  its  desolate  way,  and  the  rains 
long  ago  beat  out  the  old  footprints  it  used  to 
bear.  Autumn  sighs  as  it  follows  it  through  the 
ravine  and  among  the  hemlocks,  and  the  drifts 
that  Winter  heaps  are  unbroken  and  stainless. 

32 


250  BAGGAGE. 

No  bolder  feet,  old  Road,  ever  left  their  im 
press  on  other  pathways ;  no  truer  hearts  than 
hastened  on  thy  rugged  way,  have  ever  turned 
beautiful  in  the  "  better  land."  If  there  were 
ever  those  whose  laugh  was  music,  then  thy 
woods  have  heard  it.  The  daughters  of  the 
West  are  passing  fair,  but  those  young  brows  of 
old,  whose  white  flashed  white  again  from  thy 
singing  streams,  and  eyes  glanced  back  to  eyes 
— no  brighter  and  no  purer  were  ever  bent  above 
a  classic  wave. 

Like  thee,  those  brows  are  furrowed  and  those 
eyes  are  dim.  Like  thee,  Ambition's  line  fades 
from  the  eye  of  Time,  and  like  the  dusty  "run 
ways"  of  thy  brooks,  soft  pulses  have  grown 
dry  and  dumb. 


A   BIRD  HEAVEN.  251 


CHAPTER    VII. 


A     BIRD     HEAVEN. 

DOES  any  theological  reason  exist  why  there 
should  not  be  in  some  blessed  planet  or  other 
a  Bird  Heaven,  a  realm  where  the  green  gates 
of  Spring  are  forever  opening  and  the  fruits  of 
Summer  are  for  ever  ripening,  whose  skies  are 
full  of  the  downiest  of  clouds  and  the  softest 
of  songs  ? 

Were  I  to  be  constituted  the  Peter  of  the 
gate  of  that  Paradise,  there  are  very  few  birds 
to  which  free  entrance  should  not  be  given,  ex 
cept  Cochin  China,  Shanghai,  and  Bramah  Pootrah 
hens ;  the  raven  should  be  admitted  for  the  sake 
of  the  poet,  and  even  the  owl  should  have  a 
hollow  tree  all  to  itself,  and  a  meadow  of  mice 
for  its  portion ;  but  for  prowling  cats  and  naughty 
boys,  for  snares  and  for  fowlers,  there  should  be 
no  salvation.  No  early  frosts,  no  chilling  rains, 
the  cherries  all  free,  and  great  fields  of  grain 
for  the  pigeons.  Birds,  everywhere  birds !  Not 
a  bush  but  would  have  a  song  in  it,  all  trees 


252  BAGGAGE. 

would  be  "  singing  trees,"  and  all  nests  sacred 
as  so  many  little  arks  of  the  Covenant. 

Wicker  baskets  full  of  pearls  with  life  in  them, 
emeralds  with  song  in  them,  swinging  from  bend 
ing  bough,  hidden  in  the  grass,  rocking  among 
the  rushes,  like  the  little  Moses  of  old,  and 
everybody  as  loving  as  Pharaoh's  daughter ;  no 
serpent  in  this  Eden  to  charm ;  no  sky  scarred 
with  arrows,  no  plumage  ruffled  by  storm  — 
would  n't  it  be  a  love  of  a  place,  that  Bird 
Heaven  ? 

Just  a  few  people  that  should  be  forever  say 
ing  over  to  themselves,  "  not  a  sparrow  falleth 
to  the  ground  without  Him,"  might  live  there, 
and  the  eaves,  the  chimneys  and  the  peak  of 
the  barn-rafters  should  be  full  of  the  twitter  of 
swallows,  and  the  martin -box  should  never  be 
untenanted.  The  gate-post  should  have  a  cleft 
for  a  wren  to  dwell  in ;  the  orchard  be  rilled 
with  the  homes  of  the  robin  and  goldfinch, 
and  the  currant  -  bushes  thickly  peopled  with 
sparrows;  nightingales  should  sing  the  night  out, 
and  the  larks  go  heavenward  to  make  song  in 
the  morning.  The  plaint  of  the  whip-poor-will 
should  be  there,  and  the  mourning  of  the  wood- 
doves  heard  from  the  twilight  of  the  groves. 
Flotillas  of  white  sea-fowl  should  float  upon  the 
smooth  waters,  and  the  mote  below  the  edge  of 
the  cloud  at  anchor  far  up  in  the  noon,  should 


A   BIRD  HEAVEN.  253 

darken  into  shape,  for  an  eagle  should  be  there 
in  the  sunshine.  The  old  tree -trunks  in  the 
pasture  should  be  the  homestead  of  blue-birds  all 
the  year  long,  and  the  lilacs,  like  the  burning 
bush  of  the  mountain,  should  be  a-blaze  with 
the  wings  of  red-robin  and  oriole,  and  be  not 
consumed. 

Time  would  forget  to  go  on,  and  would  tarry 
with  June  in  such  a  midst.  And  the  poet  who 
so  plaintively  asked, 

"  Where  are  the  birds  that  sang 
An  hundred  years  ago  ?  " 

would  find  them  there,  with  the  sweet  old  song 
that  charmed  an  humbler  world.  And,  may  be, 
we  should  learn  the  bird  language  then,  and 
would  know  what  the  robins  were  saying,  and 
the  chirping  of  sparrows  be  turned  to  the 
choicest  of  English. 

There  in  the  meadow,  all  the  days  in  the  year, 
Robert  o'  Lincoln  should  ring  his  chime  of  bells; 
there  in  the  leafy  cloisters,  "  Bob  White "  should 
be  incessantly  called ;  there  on  the  nodding 
thistle-blossoms,  the  yellow-bird  should  ride  as 
the  summer  wind  went  gently  by. 

And  what  would  a  June  be  without  roses? 
And  so  the  sod  should  be  enameled,  and  the 
woods  should  not  be  lonely  for  them.  The  timid 
children  of  the  Rainbow,  that  fled  before  the 


254  BAGGAGE. 

plowshare,  should  grow  bold  again,  and  start  up 
like  young  quails  from  their  hiding,  and  cluster 
round  the  door-stone,  and  swing  themselves  up 
to  the  roof  by  green  shrouds  of  their  own,  and 
swing  themselves  down  the  damp,  mossy  sides 
of  the  spring,  and  be  numbered  with  the  house 
hold. 

And  here,  to  this  Bird  Heaven,  one  should  come 
who  all  his  earthly  life  long  was  a  loving  child 
of  Nature ;  who  saw  in  the  feather  fallen  from 
the  blue  bird  in  its  flight  the  tinting  of  the  Hand 
that  touched  the  tented  sky  with  azure  ;  in  the 
red  bird's  glowing  wing,  the  finger-prints  of  Him 
who  wove  a  ribbon  of  the  falling  rain,  and 
bound  therewith  the  cloudy  brow  of  storm : 
Audubon  should  come  and  go  at  will.  The  free 
dom  of  the  planet  should  be  his. 

And  the  world  adjoining,  and  lying  in  full 
sight,  should  be  a  Tophet  for  the  slayers  of 
robins  and  sparrows ;  the  men  whom  want  of 
worth  makes  "  fellows" ;  who  lurk  about  the 
woods,  in  the  yet  unraveled  leaf,  and  prowl  in 
the  orchards  white  with  the  sweet  drift  of  apple- 
blossoms,  and  murder  the  builders  of  the  homes 
of  song ;  the  ruffians  who,  in  bright  top-boots 
and  game-bag  cap-a-pie,  return  elated  with  two 
dead  blue-birds  and  a  lark  without  a  head , 
who  break  a  thrush's  wing,  and  misname  it 
"  sport,"  and  pass  disguised  as  men.  And  in 


A   BIRD  HEAVEN.  255 

that  Tophet  they  should  play  Nimrod,  with  kick 
ing  muskets  shooting  empty  air ;  the  crows  should 
live  with  them,  and  Nero  to  fiddle  for  them, 
and  a  filer  of  saws  for  orchestra;  and  so,  like 
Alexander  the  coppersmith,  they  should  be  re 
warded  "  according  to  their  works." 

Who  can  imagine  a  birdless  June,  or  could 
love  a  grove  rich  as  Vallombrosa  in  leafy  beauty, 
that  sheltered  no  bird,  rustled  with  no  wings, 
along  whose  green  corridors  floated  no  little  song? 

With  what  elegance  of  form,  grace  of  motion, 
brilliancy  of  coloring,  and  sweetness  of  utterance 
do  they  fill  the  summer  world.  How  like  carrier- 
doves  are  they,  forever  bringing  messages  of 
peace  from  the  bosom  of  Nature  even  to  our 
own ;  and  a  wintry  thing  indeed  is  the  happi 
ness  that  has  no  birds  in  it. 

As  he  can  not  be  altogether  evil  who  cherishes 
a  flower,  makes  friends  with  the  little  violet 
until  it  pleads  for  him,  so  they  who  love  birds 
for  their  beauty  and  song  have  yet  something 
in  themselves  that  is  lovely. 

And  this  lingering  trace  of  an  Eden-born  na 
ture  gives  to  the  denizens  of  the  air  a  commer 
cial  value  beyond  that  of  the  provision  market. 
Who  would  think,  without  thinking,  that  more 
than  seventeen  thousand  song  birds  are  annually 
sold  in  New  York  ?  The  linnets,  finches  and 
thrushes  of  the  Hartz  Mountains,  the  canaries 


256  BAGGAGE. 

from  Antwerp  and  Brussels,  the  skylarks  from 
English  fields,  and  the  painted  sparrows  from 
Java  are  among  the  multitude.  Seventy-five 
thousand  dollars  expended  in  a  single  city  every 
year  for  birds,  not  to  be  grilled  or  fricasseed,  but 
to  be  admired  for  their  beauty  or  loved  for  their 
song !  Here  are  the  figures  for  a  single  year  of 
this  graceful  trade  in  the  city  of  New  York  : 

12,500  Canaries $31,250 

600  Gold  Finches 600 

75  Blackbirds _ 525 

30  Nightingales 425 

600  Linnets 600 

IOO  Skylarks 400 

700  Fancy  Pigeons,  imported 4,000 

20  Gold  and  Silver  Pheasants 200 

650  Parrots.. 4,900 

300  Birds  of  Paradise _.  900 

150  Mocking  Birds 2,250 

600  Java  Sparrows 900 

250  White  and  Red  Cardinals 575 

80  Fire  Birds 225 


17,000  $47.750 

In  1873,  ninety-five  thousand  canaries  were  sold 
in  America  —  birds  enough  to  make  a  golden 
cloud  and  hide  the  sun  at  high  noon.  And  how 
kind  it  was  of  Chief  Justice  Chase  to  decide,  in 
1872,  that  in  the  intent  of  the  law  imposing  a 
tax  upon  imported  animals,  birds  were  not  ani- 


A    BIRD   HEAVEN.  257 

mals,    and   so    the    wings  and    the   warblers   enter 
the  United  States  duty  free  ! 

Who  can  help  following  those  wicker  cages 
with  their  little  tenants,  as,  borne  here  and  there, 
they  make  "the  winter  of  our  discontent"  a 
summer ;  to  some  gloomy  room  with  its  one  win 
dow  and  its  narrow  strip  of  sky  ;  to  the  chamber 
of  the  invalid  and  the  garret  of  poverty.  There, 
under  the  dim  sky-light,  and  there,  by  the  one 
window,  and  there,  by  the  couch  of  languishing, 
the  captives  sit  and  sing  —  sing,  though  no 
"  sweet  South "  is  blowing,  and  no  soft  sky  is 
bending,  and  no  green  branch  is  rustling ;  sit  and 
sing  while  the  fall  rains  beat  upon  the  panes ; 
while  the  snows  drift  white  upon  the  threshold  ; 
and  then,  when,  through  the  smoky  air  and  the 
dull  window,  there  comes  a  gush  of  sunshine, 
what  a  burst  of  the  old  woodland  melody  there 
is,  till  the  listening  heart  is  full  of  the  sweet 
thoughts  of  summer,  and  so  they  sing  out  sorrow's 
night,  and  "joy  cometh  in  the  morning." 


IT  is  with  a  sort  of  regret,  shared  perhaps  by 
nobody  else,  that  I  end  these  sketches.  We 
always  get  into  the  habit  of  things,  and  habit 
comes  to  rest  easily,  like  an  old  garment.  I  do 
not  now  remember  much  of  anything  I  was  not 
a  little  sorry  to  part  with,  except  a  jumping 


258 


B A  GGA  GE. 


toothache.  But  the  best  thing  I  can  do,  after 
wishing  my  readers  a  pleasant  trip  by  the  World 
on  Wheels  and  a  pleasant  Station  at  last,  is  to 


SWITCH     OFF, 


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